"A Brief Overview on the Methods of Impact Evaluation of Public Policies"

Abstract

Impact assessment is an important tool for the formulation and implementation of evidence-informed public policies. The primary objective of this article is to present a brief review of the methods most commonly used in evaluating the impact of public policies, and the secondary objective is to present examples of the application of these methods in the evaluation of programs to promote physical activity. Quasi-experimental methods are configured as an important alternative for the construction of causal inferences about the impact of policies and programs, especially when it is not possible to participate in these interventions and do not happen randomly. In this sense, we highlight the propensity score matching method and the difference-in-differences estimator, which can be used alone, combined with each other or with other methods to generate valid and robust estimates of the causal effect. At the end of the article, the application of these methods in evaluating the impact of physical activity programs in Brazil and the United States is presented, emphasizing the versatility of these methods to assess the impact by comparing groups of aggregated units (such as municipalities), either to verify the effect of an intervention on groups of individuals.