The Importance of Context for Determining Causal Mechanisms in Program Evaluation
The Case of Medical Male Circumcision for HIV Prevention Among the Luo in Western Kenya
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12470745 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Margaret Kabare (0000-0002-8273-1880, Murdoch University, Murdoch, Western Australia, Australia, corresponding author), Jeremy Northcote (0000-0002-4136-2097, Murdoch University, Murdoch, Western Australia, Australia) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 221-235 |
| Publication date | 2023-02-13 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Journal of Evaluation (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1098-2140 • E-ISSN: 1557-0878 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/10982140211062267 |
| OpenAlex | W4320731891 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 36 |
The importance of considering wider contexts when evaluating the success or failure of programs has been increasingly acknowledged with the shift towards culturally responsive evaluation. But one of the important advantages of contextual approaches has been mostly overlooked—that they can provide more “realist” evaluations for why programs fail or succeed. The careful identification of causal mechanisms involved in program delivery is important for avoiding spurious conclusions about the effectiveness of programs. Drawing on findings from a mixed-methods study conducted in Western Kenya among the Luo to evaluate the impacts of a HIV prevention program involving voluntary male medical circumcision (VMMC), it is shown that the VMMC program was one of several variables that contributed to the desired outcome, being not so much the cause but a catalyst for accelerating the desired behavioral change that the surrounding context was already amenable to and contributing to, even before the program was introduced. The need for context evaluations is particularly obvious when programs are part of broader campaigns involving scale-up from one context to another
Context (archaeology · Economics · Family medicine · Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV · Identification (biology · Outcome (game theory · Political science · Program evaluation · Public relations · Spurious relationship · Computer Science · Ethics and Legal Issues in Pediatric Healthcare · Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting Issues · Genital Health and Disease · Medicine · Psychology · Social Psychology
Male circumcision for HIV prevention in young men in Kisumu, Kenya
Randomized, Controlled Intervention Trial of Male Circumcision for Reduction of HIV Infection Risk
Male circumcision for HIV prevention in men in Rakai, Uganda
Framing participatory evaluation
The Possibility of Naturalism
Knowledge on voluntary medical male circumcision in a low uptake setting in northern Uganda
Consent Challenges and Psychosocial Distress in the Scale-up of Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision Among Adolescents in Western Kenya
Wimbo
Is realist evaluation keeping its promise? A review of published empirical studies in the field of health systems research
Exploring Use and Influence in Culturally Responsive Approaches to Evaluation
Understanding relationships in culturally complex evaluation contexts
Not men enough to rule!’
Culturally Responsive Evaluation Meets Systems-Oriented Evaluation
An Ethics Framework for Public Health
Toward an experimental ecology of human development
Politicised Ethnicity, Competitive Politics and Conflict in Kenya
Just a Snip
Doubt, defiance, and identity
Understanding the context of multifaceted collaborations for social-ecological sustainability
Forced male circumcision and the politics of foreskin in Kenya
Hegemonic Enterprises and Instrumentalities of Survival
| Highly cited | No |
|---|