Foreword

Performance Improvement 2002:  Evaluation Activities of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is the eighth annual report to Congress summarizing previous fiscal year evaluation efforts.  The purpose of this report is to provide Congress with outcome-oriented evaluation findings for the Department’s programs, policies, and strategies.   It contains brief summaries of evaluation results.

Evaluations summarized in this report contribute to performance improvement in one or more of the following ways:

• Program effectiveness studies provide a way to determine the impact of HHS programs on achieving intended goals and objectives.
• Performance measurement is the primary mechanism used to monitor annual progress in achieving departmental strategic and performance goals.
• Environmental assessment is the way we understand the forces of change in the health and human services environment that will influence the success of our programs and the achievement of our goals and objectives.
• Program management reflects the need of program managers to obtain information or data helpful for effectively designing and managing a program.

Performance Improvement 2002 includes HHS evaluation projects completed and in progress during fiscal year (FY) 2001.  The report is organized into two chapters. Chapter I provides the “Results in Brief” of selected program effectiveness evaluations.  The evaluations that were selected by an outside review panel as outstanding for their potential use by the larger health and human services community are highlighted, and are listed on the following page.  Chapter II presents summaries of FY 2001 evaluations completed and in progress by the HHS agencies and the Office of the Secretary.

The appendices contain a description of the HHS evaluation program (Appendix A), acknowledgments of the HHS officials who contributed to the report (Appendix B), and the HHS Evaluation Review Panel, a group of external evaluation experts who recommended evaluations for highlighting and the criteria the panel used to review the 19 reports nominated for outstanding evaluations for FY 2001 (Appendix C).

We hope that you will find this report useful and informative.