Evaluating the actions towards environmental health using DPSEEA and Program Logic

This paper illustrates the integration of an approach used in program evaluation with an approach used by environmental health practitioners to provide a useful tool for program planning, evaluation and decision making for environmental health practitioners. A program logic approach that focuses on and links the 'actions' designed to improve environmental health with each of the components of the DPSEEA (Driver, Pressure, State, Exposure, Effect and Action) conceptual framework for indicator development is presented. Together, these approaches can be used to facilitate the evaluation of organised actions towards environmental health, and the effectiveness of these actions in attaining the goals that might be associated with any one or more components of the DPSEEA framework. These approaches also highlight the complexities of environmental health problems. They show the need for an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary range of professionals to assist in addressing these issues. It is important to have an understanding that they are heuristic models, and can alter with improved knowledge of the mechanisms and conditions of the environmental problem and the intervention designed to address it.