USING A SET-ASIDE TO ENCOURAGE THE EVALUATION OF PUBLIC-HEALTH SERVICE PROGRAMS

For over 20 years, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has had the authority to use up to 1% of the annual Pu blic Health Service (PHS) appropriations for the evaluation of federal health programs. However, recent changes to the Public Health Service Act put not only a ceiling (1%) but also a floor (0.2%) on the funds that the secretary can set aside for evaluation. The changes to the le gislation are intended to encourage HHS to dedicate more funds to eval uation, focus the funds set aside for evaluation on studies of PHS pro gram implementation and effectiveness, and regularly report the findin gs of the evaluations to Congress. These changes respond to concerns r aised by the U.S. General Accounting Office in a study of the PHS eval uation set-aside conducted for Congress.