MPH 507 Week 4 Program Objectives Write-Up Example

Program Objectives: Screen at Home, With Every Objective Carrying a Baseline, a Target, a Date and a Measure the Health Center Can Collect

Student Name

Chamberlain University

MPH 507: Public Health Program Planning and Evaluation

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Program Objectives: Screen at Home, With Every Objective Carrying a Baseline, a Target, a Date and a Measure the Health Center Can Collect

How the Objectives Were Built

These objectives belong to Screen at Home, the Laurel Valley outreach program that puts HPV self-collection kits in the hands of overdue women through the center's own community health workers. Each objective names who will change, what will change and by how much, the starting point and its source, the date by which the change should occur and the measure that will show it. Process objectives, which describe what the program will deliver, are kept separate from outcome objectives, which describe change in people, because a program can deliver everything it promised and still change nothing. The deadlines all fall within the two-year funding period that starts in July 2026.

The Population, as Already Defined

The population is the same one counted in the needs assessment: 1,180 panel members between 30 and 65 whose charts, when pulled in March 2026, showed no in-interval screening. Objectives refer to this group, not to all women in the county, because it is the group the program can reach and measure.

Outcome Objectives

Outcome Objective 1, screening among overdue women. By June 30, 2028, at least 45% of the 1,180 women who were overdue in March 2026 will have a valid cervical screening result on file, whether by self-collected HPV test or clinician-collected test, up from 0% at baseline by definition. Measure: the health center's electronic record, with kit results entered from the laboratory interface. The target is set from evidence: in a U.S. trial of mailed kits, 26% of overdue women in the kit group were screened within six months, against 17% with reminders alone (Winer et al., 2019), and direct in-person offers in underscreened communities have reached higher participation (Arbyn et al., 2018). A two-year target of 45% assumes in-person delivery and repeated offers do better than a single mailing.

Outcome Objective 2, panel screening rate. By June 30, 2028, the share of all women aged 30 to 65 in the health center's panel who are up to date with cervical screening will rise from 70% in the March 2026 record extract to at least 80%. Measure: the same record query, run quarterly with an unchanged definition.

Outcome Objective 3, follow-up after a positive result. By June 30, 2028, at least 85% of women with a positive high-risk HPV result from a Screen at Home kit will complete the recommended follow-up within 90 days, up from 64% of women referred for colposcopy who attended in 2025, according to the health center referral log. Measure: navigator tracking log, verified against hospital colposcopy reports. Follow-up follows the risk-based national guidance, so for some women it will be a repeat test or cytology rather than colposcopy (Perkins et al., 2020).

Outcome Objective 4, knowledge of the screening interval. By June 30, 2027, at least 70% of women who receive a kit will correctly state that, after a normal HPV test, they do not need screening again for five years, up from 24% among the 42 overdue women interviewed in the needs assessment. Measure: one question asked by the community health worker at kit delivery and again by phone when the result is given.

Process Objectives

Process Objective 1, reach. By June 30, 2027, community health workers will have attempted contact with every woman on the overdue list, by at least two phone calls and one home visit for those not reached by phone. Measure: contact log.

Process Objective 2, offer. By June 30, 2027, at least 70% of women reached will have been offered a kit in person. Measure: kit distribution log.

Process Objective 3, timely navigation. Throughout the program, at least 95% of women with a positive result will receive a navigator call within three working days of the result reaching the health center. Measure: navigator log, with the laboratory result date and the call date.

Process Objective 4, kit turnaround. Throughout the program, at least 90% of returned kits will have a result posted to the record within ten days of the kit reaching the laboratory. Measure: laboratory interface timestamps.

Table 1

Screen at Home Objectives, Baselines, Targets and Measures

Note. Note. Baselines are composite figures constructed for this course.

Checks Against the Logic Model

Each outcome objective matches an outcome in the week 3 logic model: Objective 1 the short-term screening outcome, Objective 2 the intermediate panel outcome, Objective 3 the intermediate follow-up outcome and Objective 4 the short-term knowledge outcome. No objective is set for the long-term outcome of fewer invasive cancers, because the county records too few cases a year to detect a change within two years, and an unmeasurable objective would only invite a false claim. The process objectives correspond to the outputs column and will tell the evaluation whether a shortfall in outcomes reflects a program that did not work or a program that was not delivered.

Why These Targets and Not Higher Ones

Targets that are too high invite a program to be judged a failure when it has done well, and targets that are too low cannot justify the funding. The 45% screening target sits between the 26% reached by a single mailing in a well-resourced system (Winer et al., 2019) and the much higher participation seen when devices were offered directly in communities abroad (Arbyn et al., 2018), reflecting the county's in-person delivery and its harder geography. The 85% follow-up target is ambitious against a 64% baseline, but the program assigns a navigator to every positive result, which is the change most likely to move it. If the first-year data show either target is badly misjudged, the health center will revise it openly in the annual report rather than quietly at the end.

References

Arbyn, M., Smith, S. B., Temin, S., Sultana, F., & Castle, P. (2018). Detecting cervical precancer and reaching underscreened women by using HPV testing on self samples: Updated meta-analyses. BMJ, 363, k4823. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.k4823

Perkins, R. B., Guido, R. S., Castle, P. E., Chelmow, D., Einstein, M. H., Garcia, F., Huh, W. K., Kim, J. J., Moscicki, A.-B., Nayar, R., Saraiya, M., Sawaya, G. F., Wentzensen, N., & Schiffman, M. (2020). 2019 ASCCP risk-based management consensus guidelines for abnormal cervical cancer screening tests and cancer precursors. Journal of Lower Genital Tract Disease, 24(2), 102-131. https://doi.org/10.1097/LGT.0000000000000525

Winer, R. L., Lin, J., Tiro, J. A., Miglioretti, D. L., Beatty, T., Gao, H., Kimbel, K., Thayer, C., & Buist, D. S. M. (2019). Effect of mailed human papillomavirus test kits vs usual care reminders on cervical cancer screening uptake, precancer detection, and treatment: A randomized clinical trial. JAMA Network Open, 2(11), e1914729. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.14729