Beyond the Win: Tracking progress and impact of policy, systems, and environmental change initiatives

Debates about systems and policies that support public health, health care, and social services in the United States are more intense and consequential than at any time in recent memory.  Federal systems and staff are changing at an unprecedented pace. As we negotiate policy, systems, and environmental work, it is more important than ever to understand promising strategies and barriers to promote, initiate and defend policies, so that they can reach their intended impact.

CCHE developed The Policy Spectrum, a tool that advocates, coalition leaders, program leaders, funders, and evaluators can use to inform their priorities and assess progress across multifaceted policy and advocacy efforts.  Policy, systems, and environmental changes are a long-recognized pathway to sustainable improvements in community health. Evaluating the impact of broad, complex community health efforts can be challenging, due to shifts in the political landscape, the long timeline and fluid, multi-step nature of the work.  This tool is flexible and allows for a “stages of change” model to track and understand progress along the way to the ultimate long-term goal of sustained change.

CCHE’s policy spectrum adds value to planning, implementing, and evaluating policy, systems, and environmental efforts by:

• providing common language for activities.
• tracking work leading up to and after the policy “win.”
• underscoring that progress isn’t always linear.
• identifying shorter term milestones and metrics of progress that can convey the effectiveness and impact of policy efforts within shorter timeframes.
• visually depicting how policy efforts are progressing, even without tangible policy “wins” to help build momentum and continued commitment.

This tool was developed based on decades of observing and evaluating initiatives aimed at creating sustainable policy changes at many levels. Most recently, we have been using it to help KP track implementation of internal policy initiatives, including the Common Health Coalition, CityHealth, and Center for Gun Violence Research and Education.

To learn more about how CCHE has used the policy spectrum to support policy and advocacy work across the country, visit our Policy Spectrum page.