Columbus, Ohio

Objective: Measure the progress achieved by Lead Safe Columbus in eliminating elevated blood lead levels in children. The principal measure is to assess the main program activities, which include increased lead-safe housing and increased lead awareness, as well as the educational component’s outreach extent and behavioral effect.

View the 2009 Columbus, Ohio Logic Model

Abstract: The City of Columbus, Ohio, Lead Safe Columbus program is a federally funded effort that employs educational activities and control of home lead hazards to decrease lead poisoning in children. The evaluation framework measures the program’s progress by assessing the main program activities—increased lead-safe housing and increased lead awareness—as well the educational component’s outreach and behavioral impact. Additionally, the creation of an evaluation framework for the eventual transition to a Healthy Homes program helps to ensure collection of thorough and high-quality information from the beginning of implementation. Thus, appropriate data collection mechanisms are thereby established, including potential information-sharing agreements with partnership organizations or expansion of existing collaborations.

Lead Safe Columbus currently quantifies its progress towards targeted goals through U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) mandated quarterly reports, a standard tool used by all HUD-funded lead housing programs. HUD’s evaluation measures program performance as the number of units made lead-safe. We propose an expansion of this current evaluation format by addressing the program’s community outreach and health impact and by providing tools for performing self-comparisons in a longitudinal follow up. Our recommendations will therefore include additional ways to measure program activities, as well as ways to link them to health outcomes.

< 2009 Program Evaluation Projects