Evaluating Healthcare Interventions: Answering the 'How' Question

Abstract

[Healthcare interventions are complex and often do not lend themselves easily to classical experimental study designs. We examined published evaluation studies of public health programmes in India and discuss the scope for using realist evaluation, a type of theory-driven inquiry that attempts to understand what works, for whom and under what conditions. In spite of considerable methodological challenges, framing evaluation questions such that they address the questions of how and why healthcare interventions work (or not) is of key importance to policymakers and decision-makers in health. The recent calls in literature for health systems research offers a new opportunity for collaboration between social scientists and public health researchers infilling up the gaps in evaluation research in India.]