Environmental Program Evaluation
Sarah Gill, MA
Evaluation technical advisor
CDC, United States
Heather Joseph, MPH
Health Scientist
CDC, United States
Samuel Dunklin, MPH (he/him/his)
Health Scientist
National Asthma Control Program, CDC, United States
Evan Mallen, MUP, PhD (he/him/his)
ORISE Fellow
Climate and Health Program, CDC
Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Sarah Gill, n/a
Evaluation Technical Advisor
National Asthma Control Program/CDC, United States
Location: Room 102
Abstract Information: As evaluators in CDC’s Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice, we are noticing shifts in language as the National Center for Environmental Health recommits to environmental justice. While our programs aren’t explicitly using a narrative change strategy, they are developing elements of such a strategy. How can we, as evaluators working in asthma and climate change, use evaluation and communication theories and tools to pose thoughtful questions that support a shift in how CDC tells this story? For example, what elements of narrative change can be influenced at the federal level? How can we effectively collaborate with (not lead) partners to shift the voice that tells the story? Even more fundamental, how do we support the potential adoption of an entirely new-to-us strategy? In this roundtable session we will discuss these and other questions that we hope participants who are further along this path will bring.
Relevance Statement: As evaluators in CDC’s Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice working in asthma control and climate change, we are noticing shifts in the ways our colleagues in the National Center for Environmental Health talk about our work. More and more, as NCEH recommits to environmental justice, we’re hearing terms like environmental racism, redlining, and distributive justice in everyday conversations and presentations. While our programs aren’t explicitly using a narrative change strategy to move toward environmental justice, they are developing elements of such a strategy, particularly around language. Across all five elements of narrative (language, stories, voice, frames, and messages) (1), there would seem to be a role for a federal agency in shifting a narrative away from one of poor health as individual (or sometimes genetic) failure to a narrative that adopts a systems lens and recognizes the many factors that contribute to or diminish health and wellbeing. Similar choices are relevant to climate and health efforts. The distribution of harms is a crucial aspect in discussions of adaptation to rapidly accelerating climate change; it is well known that the people who have done the least to cause the problem bear a disproportionate burden. To what degree should fairness be incorporated into the public health narrative on climate change? Would it serve to stall momentum or move us more quickly to productive action? Narrative, system science, complexity, emergence—all these are fairly new concepts to us. We have so many questions: • How can we become co-learners developing value (2) alongside our colleagues to understand the power of stories and narrative? Our division’s work relies on the efforts of people working in program development, policy, communications, surveillance, and epidemiology. We all tell stories with data every day, but we rarely think of it in those terms. • Which elements of narrative change can most readily be influenced at the federal level, and how can we effectively collaborate with (not lead) funded and non-funded partners to shift the voice that tells the story? • What shifts in mindset are required to support a shift in narrative? How do predominately health scientists begin to think about the role of stories and other less-common-at-CDC ways of learning? What are some of the markers throughout this transformation we should be on the look out for? For this roundtable, we will bring our questions as well as six months’ worth of observations, challenges, and (hopefully) successes to share. (1) Kalra, N., Borges Farfan, C., Robles, L., & Stachowiak, S. (2021, February). Measuring Narrative Change: Understanding Progress and Navigating Complexity. Retrieved March 2023, from https://www.orsimpact.com/DirectoryAttachments/3102021_103034_594_ORS_Impact_Measuring_Narrative_Change_2.0.pdf (2) Schwandt, T. A., Gates, E. F. (2021). Evaluating and valuing in Social Research. The Guilford Press.