HEP 456 Module 7 Final Program Evaluation Plan Example

Program Evaluation Plan for Walk With Ease Mesa, a Six-Week Walking Program for Older Adults With Arthritis

Student Name

BS in Health Education and Health Promotion, Arizona State University

HEP 456: Health Promotion Program Evaluation

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Program Evaluation Plan for Walk With Ease Mesa, a Six-Week Walking Program for Older Adults With Arthritis

Abstract

Walk With Ease Mesa offers adults aged 55 and older with arthritis 18 group walking sessions over six weeks at two of the city's active adult centers. This plan describes how the program's reach, delivery and short-term effects will be evaluated during its first year, 2027. Process evaluation will track enrollment, attendance, fidelity and reasons for dropping out across eight cohorts. Impact evaluation will compare each completer's week 1 and week 6 answers to measure change in weekly walking minutes, arthritis pain and self-efficacy among about 80 completers. The plan includes stakeholder roles, consent procedures, a survey, a timeline and a plan for sharing results with six audiences. Findings will inform the city's decision about continuing the program.

Contents

Section 4, Health Problem; Section 5, Program; Section 6, Stakeholders and Evaluation Questions; Section 7, Participants and Consent; Section 8, Evaluation Design; Section 9, Survey; Section 10, Timeline; Section 11, Communication Plan; Section 12, References.

Section 4. The Health Problem

Roughly one U.S. adult in five, 53.2 million people, had diagnosed arthritis in 2019 through 2021, most of them middle-aged or older (Fallon et al., 2023). Among Maricopa County adults, modeled 2023 estimates put arthritis at 23.5% and leisure-time inactivity at 20.4% (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2025). Pain limits movement, and limited movement in turn weakens muscles, stiffens joints and raises cardiometabolic risk. National activity guidelines urge adults living with chronic conditions to stay as active as their abilities permit (Piercy et al., 2018).

Section 5. The Program

Trained leaders guide groups of up to 15 through three one-hour sessions a week. Each session pairs a brief talk on topics such as pacing and heat safety with a warm-up, a walk that grows from 10 to 35 minutes and a cool-down, and participants keep a walking diary. Eligible adults are 55 or older, have arthritis and are able to stand for 10 minutes with no added pain. In summer, walks move to an indoor track. The planner aims to enroll 120 adults, keep 70% attending at least 12 sessions and see half of completers reach 150 weekly minutes of moderate activity. An earlier multisite study of the same six-week model found gains in symptoms, strength, balance and walking speed and reported no adverse events (Callahan et al., 2011).

Section 6. Stakeholders and Evaluation Questions

Five groups will help shape and interpret the evaluation: the planner and walk leaders, two pilot participants, the center managers, a nurse from a referring clinic and a bilingual community health worker. Engaging people the program serves follows the cross-cutting actions of CDC's 2024 framework, whose cross-cutting actions include collaborative engagement and advancing equity (Kidder et al., 2024).

Section 7. Participants and Consent

Every enrollee will be offered the evaluation separately from the program, by a data collector who does not lead walks. The consent form, written in plain English and Spanish, opens with key information and covers purpose, procedures, risks, benefits, privacy, voluntary participation and contacts, consistent with the federal consent requirements (45 C.F.R. § 46.116). In the consent conversation, the collector asks open questions, asks the person to explain the study back and allows time to decide. Data collectors hold CITI certificates, and the ASU Institutional Review Board will determine the review category.

Section 8. Evaluation Design

Process data come from enrollment forms, attendance logs, two observed sessions per cohort and short calls to people who miss three sessions in a row. The impact design compares each completer's answers at the first and final sessions. Because there is no comparison group, seasonal effects, natural recovery, survey practice and dropout could all shape the results. The plan reports by season, compares dropouts' baseline answers with completers' and describes findings as change among participants. With about 80 completers, a paired test should detect a standardized change near 0.32 with roughly 80% power. Paired t tests or signed-rank tests, McNemar's test and confidence intervals make up the analysis.

Section 9. Survey

The 26-item survey has five parts: walking and activity, arthritis pain, the self-efficacy scale's pain and symptom items (Lorig et al., 1989), background questions at pretest and satisfaction questions at posttest. Three older adults, one of them a Spanish speaker, will pretest it.

Section 10. Timeline

Section 11. Communication Plan

City leaders receive a two-page brief and presentation; center managers and walk leaders receive meetings and tip sheets in June and again at the end; participants receive a large-print bilingual summary at a reunion walk before results go public; referring clinicians receive an email with a referral card; and Spanish-speaking residents hear results through a community health worker in local media. Three months after the report, the evaluator will ask which recommendations were adopted.

Revisions After Feedback

My partner pointed out that the original consent form ran to two pages at a high reading level; it is now one page with short sentences. The instructor asked for a stated power estimate and for the threats to validity to be tied to specific steps, both added to Section 8. The timeline now includes an interim summary so leaders can act midyear.

References

Callahan, L. F., Shreffler, J. H., Altpeter, M., Schoster, B., Hootman, J., Houenou, L. O., Martin, K. R., & Schwartz, T. A. (2011). Evaluation of group and self-directed formats of the Arthritis Foundation's Walk With Ease Program. Arthritis Care & Research, 63(8), 1098-1107. https://doi.org/10.1002/acr.20490

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2025). PLACES: Local data for better health, county data, 2025 release [Data set]. https://data.cdc.gov/500-Cities-Places/PLACES-Local-Data-for-Better-Health-County-Data-20/swc5-untb

Fallon, E. A., Boring, M. A., Foster, A. L., Stowe, E. W., Lites, T. D., Odom, E. L., & Seth, P. (2023). Prevalence of diagnosed arthritis: United States, 2019-2021. MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 72(41), 1101-1107. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7241a1

General requirements for informed consent, 45 C.F.R. § 46.116 (2025).

Kidder, D. P., Fierro, L. A., Luna, E., Salvaggio, H., McWhorter, A., Bowen, S.-A., Murphy-Hoefer, R., Thigpen, S., Alexander, D., Armstead, T. L., August, E., Bruce, D., Clarke, S. N., Davis, C., Downes, A., Gill, S., House, L. D., Kerzner, M., Kun, K., . . . Young, K. (2024). CDC program evaluation framework, 2024. MMWR. Recommendations and Reports, 73(6), 1-37. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.rr7306a1

Lorig, K., Chastain, R. L., Ung, E., Shoor, S., & Holman, H. R. (1989). Development and evaluation of a scale to measure perceived self-efficacy in people with arthritis. Arthritis & Rheumatism, 32(1), 37-44. https://doi.org/10.1002/anr.1780320107

Piercy, K. L., Troiano, R. P., Ballard, R. M., Carlson, S. A., Fulton, J. E., Galuska, D. A., George, S. M., & Olson, R. D. (2018). The Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans. JAMA, 320(19), 2020-2028. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2018.14854