An evaluability assessment to develop a restaurant health promotion program in Canada

An evaluability assessment was conducted to develop a standard, provincial restaurant health promotion program that public health units across Ontario can adopt. This assessment focused on extensive stakeholder consultation t o develop a program logic model to diagrammatically describe the assumption s underlying the program. First, details about existing restaurant health p romotion programs were analyzed to assist in planning the program. Based on this review: a provincial steering committee recommended that restaurants must meet minimum requirements for nutrition, food safety and non-smoking s eating standards to qualify for recognition. Second, stakeholders were cons ulted about the program goal, target groups, and these and other possible s tandards. This Entailed conducting focus groups with restaurant patrons and interviewing public health unit staff restaurateurs and food service suppl iers. A workgroup developed a draft logic model based on the results of the consultation. Third, community focus groups, public health unit surveys an d expert reviews were conducted to assess the plausibility of the logic mod el. The workgroup revised the logic model based on the results of this cons ultation. The final logic model conceptualizes the program as: (i) three pr ogram standards for restaurateurs; (ii) social marketing activities targete d to consumers and restaurateurs; (iii) education and skill development act ivities targeted to restaurant managers and staff public health unit staff and volunteers; and (iv) environmental support activities targeted to resta urateurs, public health unit staff and volunteers. The logic model shows th e relationship between long-term, intermediate and short-term desired outco mes and program activities that need to be implemented provincially and loc ally to achieve the desired outcomes. The final logic model was subsequentl y communicated to various stakeholders. It is apparent that the evaluabilit y assessment involved considerable stakeholder Participation to develop the program. Thus, they should be more likely to agree with the program design and participate in the restaurant program in their community.