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An often overlooked step in the process of analyzing results, data cleaning is vital to ensure the accuracy of your evaluation. After all, you put a lot of time and effort into developing your instrument, training your data collectors, and gathering a representative sample. You don't want all that hard work ruined by dirty data!

We all have our workplans, and in an ideal world, we would complete all activities by the assigned due date without incident. However, we are all painfully aware that we do not live in a perfect world, and oftentimes things do not go according to plan. What do we do then? In this article, we explore some real-life situations in which things did not go according to plan and how some evaluators have handled it.

While out on a walk after Thanksgiving, I was having a conversation with a friend. As we walked along, crunching the leaves and fallen acorns, we began talking about what we were thankful for. Our conversation touched on something subtle and perhaps overlooked; we talked about acknowledging and thanking those around us. 

Every quarter, evaluators have an opportunity to connect with other evaluators in the Tobacco Evaluator Alliance. At the last meeting, some requested additional help on FER writing, so we got together with Yaneth from the Hispanic Coordinating Center to quickly offer a FER Q/A session.  These are the main takeaways from that session and an invitation to join us for the next one.

Collaboration unites people, ideas, and surveys. Yes. You read that right. Surveys. Mono County’s Tobacco Education Program (TEP) has been working with their Local Oral Health Program to deliver a tobacco cessation survey to dental providers. Their collaboration is just one example of the many that already exist and are forming. I’ve had the privilege of interviewing Lauren Kemmeter, Project Director of Mono County’s TEP.

To get to know more about their collaboration, I wanted to understand who they are first.

In April, I was invited to participate in the American Heart Association’s Tobacco Endgame Center for Organizing and Engagement’s Affinity call to share ideas about how evaluation can inform and support project decisions and actions. Or as Paul Knepprath, the Tobacco Endgame Center’s project director, put it: How to use evaluation to win campaigns. 

Entering the world of California tobacco control evaluation can be overwhelming. Due to decades of hard work, the world of California tobacco control is a vast network of collaborators and partners, with its own set of rules, acronyms and requirements.

But we have good news: Because of this well-established infrastructure, a new evaluator has a plethora of resources and support at their fingertips!

Like any new relationship, when an external evaluator takes on a new project, there will be an adjustment period as everyone gets to know each other. This may be especially true if the project is new to CTCP-funded work. Below are some considerations to consider to foster a successful partnership with them.

If possible, the evaluator and newly funded project should build more time into the contract for meetings with project staff. This may include meetings with project staff and their CTCP Project Coordinator (PC). There are multiple reasons why this is important:

If you haven’t taken the time to explore the Tobacco Control Evaluation Center’s website, you might be missing out on evaluation lifesaving information! In this series, we highlight some of the online resources TCEC provides to our partners in tobacco control.

A few months ago, I was invited to take part in the American Heart Association’s Tobacco Endgame Center for Organizing and Engagement’s Affinity call to share ideas about how evaluation can inform and support project decisions and actions.  Or as Paul Knepprath, the Tobacco Endgame Center’s project director, put it: How to use evaluation to win campaigns. 

As the observations for the End Commercial Tobacco Campaign wrap up, TCEC staff had the chance to assist Local Lead Agencies with their data collections. As always, TCEC is happy to help, and when we do we like to write up our experience. This time around, Jorge Andrews and Danielle Lippert went out in the summer heat and put their evaluator skills to the test. Here are their stories:

Facts are everywhere around us.  From the news to what we learn in school, facts are ubiquitous.  We are often inundated with facts, data, and information. But how do we know what fact is supported by good or bad evidence?

Even before I was born, my family has been huge followers of Bay Area sports.  Our Golden State Warriors are currently up 1-0 in the Western Conference Finals.  (Go Warriors!)  As a fan, it’s a lot of fun (and nerve-wracking) to watch our favorite teams do what they do.  As an evaluator, my brain can’t help but also see the fun in the numbers of the game, the different stats and data visualizations flashed on the screen or written in articles.   

How to use evaluation to win campaigns. 

That’s how Paul Knepprath of the American Heart Association’s Tobacco Endgame Center for Organizing and Engagement characterized the presentation that TCEC gave on the Tobacco Endgame Center’s March Affinity call.

If you’re reading this in between your marathon of writing FERs and BERs: Keep it up!  You got this! 

If you’re reading this after you’ve come up for air from sending off all the reports: Congrats!  You deserve a breather from this whirlwind of a contract!