Military and Veteran Evaluation
Jessica Jackson, MA, MPH
Senior Assessment, Monitoring, and Evaluation Specialist
Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., United States
Amber Rollings, PhD
Assessment, Monitoring, and Evaluation Analyst
Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., United States
Elizabeth Pertner, PhD
Senior Policy Advisor
Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., United States
Eric Regalbuto, M.Sc.
Assessment, Monitoring, and Evaluation Analyst
Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., United States
Location: Room 105
Abstract Information: Global Health Engagement (GHE) activities are part of the U.S. Department of Defense's (DoD) whole-of-government approach to global health to ensure medical readiness of the U.S. warfighter and build relationships with strategic allies. The nature of GHE is dynamic and evidenced by anecdotal accounts, practice-based methods, and evidence-based strategies. As such, the methods for evaluating GHE must also be dynamic and focus on telling the story of lessons learned and ways ahead for working with strategic allies. Panelists will present three different Assessment, Monitoring, and Evaluation (AME) studies pertinent to GHE. The three studies covered will include evaluations of the African Pandemic Outbreak Response Alliance and the African Peacekeeping Rapid Response Partnership, as well as development of the knowledge management tool Medical Options. While each of the three projects had their own objectives and directives, they all utilized the common and imperative element of individuals’ narratives to provide the theoretical grounding for understanding stakeholder needs and overarching outcomes. The populations represented in these projects ranged from U.S. DoD personnel, foreign military, and civilian ministerial/government stakeholders. The diversity of stakeholders in these studies provided an opportunity to highlight and broaden the visibility of existing efforts and ensuing successes and challenges, along with future endeavors, needs, and recommendations. This panel of speakers will provide the audience with unique perspectives regarding evaluations within the GHE enterprise and how they approached disseminating evaluation results.
Relevance Statement: Storytelling in the evaluation of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Global Health Engagement (GHE) activities is a powerful tool to make sense and provide insight into the impact of initiatives and how they address the needs of participating stakeholders. In this realm, narratives also help to highlight upstream and downstream stakeholders and if there were any other intended or unintended consequences. This proposal includes projects pertinent to the U.S. DoD GHE enterprise, and will provide a vantage point to a realm layered with bureaucracy and structure that can be arduous to navigate. The intent of this proposal is to highlight how storytelling can be a powerful mechanism in bridging the gap between understanding strategic effects, Commanders’ information requirements, and linking that to activities conducted at the tactical level and outcomes from these enterprises. Additionally, across the field of evaluation, an understanding of evaluative reports regarding their endeavors can pose challenges, especially when outcomes are not in alignment with expectations. Storytelling and weaving experiential knowledge with evidence helps to contextualize findings and connect outcomes to strategy. During this panel, emphasis will be placed on how the participants’ stories were synthesized into tangibly digestible content for the U.S. DoD customer. These elements will include how systematic investigations and primary data were packaged to highlight strengths, challenges, and opportunities that result from the U.S. DoD GHE activities. Thus, the central question answered by this panel will be “how do we balance these competing strategies and approaches, while being true to the spirit of evaluation?” As the panelists share how they used their methods to tell stories of successes and challenges, they will also tell their own stories of how they were influenced by this information. Their narratives will underscore how they structured their evaluative approaches and pivoted their methods and instruments when necessary. Their accounts will also provide insight on how they ensured the direction of the final evaluation products were truly embedded in the interviewed stakeholders' stories via holistic representation. USU Disclaimer: The opinions and assertions expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences or the Department of Defense. HJF Disclaimer: The views expressed are solely those of the authors and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc., the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, the DoD, or the U.S. Government.
Presenter: Amber Rollings, PhD – Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc.
Presenter: Elizabeth Pertner, PhD – Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc.
Presenter: Eric Regalbuto, M.Sc. – Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc.
Presenter: Jessica Jackson, MA, MPH – Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc.