Evaluation of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Evaluation Fellowship Program

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Abstract
Objective: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Evaluation Fellowship Program is a 2-year fellowship that includes training, placement with a CDC program, and professional development funds. We evaluated whether the program contributed to CDC’s evaluation capacity, prepared fellows for evaluation work, and contributed to their career advancement during its first 10 years. Methods: We used a mixed-methods approach, including conducting an online survey and telephone interviews. External evaluators sent surveys to all 152 alumni and all 123 mentors who participated in the program from 2011 through 2020 (first 8 cohorts) and interviewed 9 mentors and 15 alumni. Results: A total of 110 alumni (72.4%) and 44 mentors (35.8%) completed surveys. Of 44 mentors, most agreed their fellow(s) contributed to their program’s overall evaluation capacity (90.9%) and its ability to do more evaluation (88.6%). Most (84.2%-88.1%) alumni agreed that the Evaluation Fellowship Program prepared them to apply the 6 skill sets that aligned with CDC’s Framework for Program Evaluation in Public Health. Support from the Fellowship office was significantly and positively correlated with performing evaluation tasks (β = 0.25; P = .004) and alumni obtaining their first job (β = 0.36; P < .001). Host program mentoring was significantly correlated with performing evaluation tasks (β = 0.27; P = .02) and alumni obtaining their first job (β = 0.34; P = .007). Conclusion: CDC’s Evaluation Fellowship Program has made progress toward building CDC’s evaluation capacity and preparing a public health workforce to use evaluation skills in various settings. A service-learning model that provides training and applied experiences could prepare a workforce to build evaluation capacity.