| Course | MPH 500 Introduction to Public Health Systems, Organizations, & Practice |
|---|---|
| Week | 7 |
| Paper type | Program evaluation plan |
| Length | About 1,120 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | Master of Public Health (MPH) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MPH 500 Week 7
Evaluation Plan for Harbor County's Cooling Tower Registration and Maintenance Ordinance, Starting From the Questions the County Board Will Ask
Student Name
Chamberlain University
MPH 500: Introduction to Public Health Systems, Organizations, & Practice
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Evaluation Plan for Harbor County's Cooling Tower Registration and Maintenance Ordinance, Starting From the Questions the County Board Will Ask
Who Wants to Know, and Why
Three audiences will use this evaluation. The county board of commissioners, which adopted the ordinance with a requirement that the health department report back after two years, wants to know whether the ordinance was worth its cost to owners and whether it should continue, change or end. The health department's director wants to know whether the registry and inspections are working well enough to justify the half-time specialist the fees fund. And the apartment owners association, which accepted the ordinance with a phase-in, wants to know whether the testing burden is falling as promised. The plan starts from their questions and works back to what would answer them.
The Questions, Before the Methods
Five questions organize the plan. Was the ordinance carried out: are the county's towers registered, with maintenance plans and quarterly tests? Did tower water get safer: are fewer tests above the action level over time? When a test is high, does the response happen as required? Did Legionnaires' disease fall, and can a source be found when cases cluster? And what did it cost, to owners and to the county? The first and third are process questions, about whether the program was delivered. The second, fourth and fifth are outcome and cost questions, about whether it changed anything. Keeping them apart matters, because a registry that is fully delivered could still leave cases unchanged, and a fall in cases could happen for reasons unrelated to the ordinance.
Indicators, With Source and Frequency
Table 1
Evaluation Indicators for the Cooling Tower Ordinance
| Question | Indicator | Source | Frequency | Who collects |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carried out | Registered towers as a share of towers identified by any means | Registry; building permits; field surveys | Quarterly | Environmental health specialist |
| Carried out | Registered towers with a maintenance plan on file | Registry | Quarterly | Environmental health specialist |
| Carried out | Required quarterly tests submitted on time | Registry | Quarterly | Environmental health specialist |
| Safer water | Tests above the action level as a share of tests submitted | Registry test results | Quarterly | Environmental health specialist |
| Response | High results followed by disinfection and a passing retest within 14 days | Registry; inspection records | Quarterly | Environmental health specialist |
| Cases | Reported Legionnaires' disease cases and rate per 100,000 | County surveillance | Annually | Epidemiologist |
| Cases | Clusters in which an environmental source was identified | Outbreak reports | Each cluster | Epidemiologist |
| Cost | Fees collected; owners' reported testing costs; staff hours | Finance records; owner survey; time records | Annually | Division supervisor |
Note. Note. Action level as set in the ordinance's technical rule. Baselines from 2021 to 2025 surveillance and the 2025 cluster investigation.
Process: Was It Delivered?
Delivery is the first thing to establish because everything else depends on it. The registry's coverage is measured against every tower the county can identify, not only those that register, which means comparing registrations with permit records, field surveys of rooftops in the highest-risk tracts and towers found during any investigation. A registry that captures 90% of towers the county knows about may still miss towers it does not; field surveys in two tracts a year will estimate how many remain unknown.
Outcome: Did Anything Change?
Two outcomes carry the evaluation. The first, tests above the action level, is the most direct sign of whether maintenance improved, and it changes fastest; a falling share over the first two years would be the clearest sign that maintenance has actually improved. A local testing mandate elsewhere reported fewer contaminated towers over time (Whitney et al., 2017), so this is a reasonable expectation. The second, Legionnaires' disease cases, is what the board cares about most and is the hardest to read. Cases vary with weather, testing practices and chance, and 31 cases a year is too few for a two-year change to be distinguished from ordinary variation. The evaluation will report cases with their trend since 2021 and will say plainly that a change, or the lack of one, cannot by itself prove the ordinance's effect.
A third outcome is more achievable: whether investigators can identify a source when cases cluster. In 2025 they could not, because towers near the cases could not be found. In New York City, the registry let investigators reach all the towers around a cluster quickly (Fitzhenry et al., 2017). Each cluster after the ordinance will be reviewed for whether the registry located nearby towers and whether a source was found.
Baselines, Fixed Before the Ordinance Begins
Each indicator needs a starting point recorded before the first registration, because once the program starts the before is gone. For cases, the baseline is the five-year series, 14 to 31 cases from 2021 to 2025. For clusters, it is the 2025 investigation, in which 14 of an estimated 35 nearby towers were located and no source was found. For towers, the baseline is the city's permit list of 212 and a field survey of the two highest-risk tracts, carried out in May 2026, which counted 38 towers, 15 of them not on the permit list. There is no baseline for contamination, since no towers were tested routinely; the first quarter of results will serve as the starting point, and the evaluation will say so. Outbreak reviews that link most outbreaks to preventable maintenance failures (Garrison et al., 2016) are the reason the contamination indicator is treated as the program's central outcome despite having no earlier baseline.
What the Design Cannot Establish
The evaluation compares the county with its own past, with no comparison county. It cannot rule out that cases fell because of cooler summers, changed testing at hospitals or chance, and it cannot attribute any change in cases to the ordinance alone. It also relies on owners' own test results, which could be selectively reported; the division's annual sample inspections, including independent tests at 10% of towers, are the check on that.
Reporting to Somebody
Results go to the people who asked. The division supervisor receives quarterly process figures and acts on low compliance. The board receives a two-page report at one and two years, organized around its question of continue, change or end, with the cost to owners stated beside the results. The apartment owners association receives the annual testing cost survey and the share of high results among its members' towers. Each report states what the design cannot establish, so that a fall in cases is not oversold and a flat year is not read as failure.
References
Fitzhenry, R., Weiss, D., Cimini, D., Balter, S., Boyd, C., Alleyne, L., Stewart, R., McIntosh, N., Econome, A., Lin, Y., Rubinstein, I., Passaretti, T., Kidney, A., Lapierre, P., Kass, D., & Varma, J. K. (2017). Legionnaires' disease outbreaks and cooling towers, New York City, New York, USA. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 23(11), 1769-1776. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2311.161584
Garrison, L. E., Kunz, J. M., Cooley, L. A., Moore, M. R., Lucas, C., Schrag, S., Sarisky, J., & Whitney, C. G. (2016). Vital signs: Deficiencies in environmental control identified in outbreaks of Legionnaires' disease: North America, 2000-2014. MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 65(22), 576-584. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6522e1
Whitney, E. A., Blake, S., & Berkelman, R. L. (2017). Implementation of a Legionella ordinance for multifamily housing, Garland, Texas. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 23(6), 601-607. https://doi.org/10.1097/PHH.0000000000000518
MPH 500 Week 7 instructions, in plain terms
Start from who needs to know and what they will ask, then work back to what would answer each question. Separate process questions, about whether the program was delivered, from outcome questions, about whether anything changed, and do not use delivery figures to claim effects. List indicators with their source, frequency and who collects them. Fix baselines before the program begins and say where no baseline exists. Explain which outcome is the most direct sign of change and which is hardest to read, and why. State what the design cannot establish, such as attribution without a comparison group. Close by saying who receives which results and in what form, so the evaluation reports to somebody rather than to no one.
How the MPH 500 Week 7 example is put together
The sample names three audiences and their questions. Five questions follow, labeled process or outcome. A table lists eight indicators, from registered towers as a share of towers identified by any means to fees and owners' costs. The process section explains measuring registry coverage against permits and rooftop surveys. The outcome section treats the share of tests above the action level as the clearest sign and explains why 31 cases a year cannot show a two-year change. A section on clusters asks whether nearby towers can be reached. Baselines are fixed, including a May 2026 survey finding 38 towers in two tracts. Limits include no comparison county and owner-reported tests, and reporting is tailored to each audience.
Reading the MPH 500 Week 7 grading rubric
The commonest loss is a plan built from available data: attendance, satisfaction surveys and materials counted, with no evaluation question that any of it answers. The second is process measured and outcome claimed, where delivery figures are used to support a statement about whether the program worked. Marks are also lost for indicators named too vaguely to collect, for missing baselines and for designs whose limits are never stated. Graders reward plans that begin with the users' questions, separate process from outcome, specify each indicator's source and frequency, fix baselines early, admit what the design cannot establish and report to named audiences. Fixing baselines before the program starts also earns credit.
MPH 500 Week 7 help: mistakes that cost points
Evaluation plans are often built backward from whatever data are easy to get. Share the program, who will use the evaluation and the data that exist or could be collected, and the plan can start from their questions, separate delivery from effect, specify indicators with sources and timing, fix baselines and say plainly what the design cannot prove. Deciding who receives which results, and in what form, is the step that makes an evaluation get used. The program and its data are yours. Admitting where no baseline exists, as the sample does for contamination, makes the rest of the plan more credible.
Get a MPH-500 Week 7 example written to your instructions
Send the Week 7 instructions with the framework your section teaches and the program you are evaluating, and a custom example is written to that model and returned inside 24 to 48 hours. The first one is free. What the evaluation should ask stays yours to settle.
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MPH 500 Week 7 questions, answered
How detailed does an introductory plan need to be?
Detailed enough that somebody could begin. Named indicators, identified data sources and a stated frequency is usually the bar, and full instrument design is normally reserved for later courses. What distinguishes a strong introductory plan is that the questions came first and the indicators genuinely answer them, rather than depth of method.
Is satisfaction data worthless?
Not worthless, but it answers a process question rather than an outcome one. Whether participants found a program acceptable matters for whether they will return and for how it should be delivered. It says nothing about whether anything changed, and treating it as though it did is the substitution this assignment is built to catch.
What if the program has no baseline?
Say so, and propose how one would be established before or at the start. Introductory plans are frequently written for programs already running, which makes this a real problem rather than a hypothetical one. Acknowledging it and describing a workable substitute reads as competent, while writing targets as though a baseline existed does not.
Where can I find a free MPH 500 Week 7 sample paper?
This page holds the full evaluation plan for a cooling tower registration and maintenance ordinance.
Why does the MPH 500 Week 7 sample not rely on case counts?
With about 31 cases a year, a two-year change cannot be told apart from ordinary variation, so the share of high test results is the central outcome.