Indicators help you decide whether your program is effective and successful. They are the units of measurement used to assess the extent to which objectives have been met. They help answer the questions:
- How will you know the program has been implemented?
- How will you know the objective has been achieved?
- How will you measure progress toward your desired outcome?
- How will you know what is different after your program?[1]
Resources
Health communication outcomes: At the heart of good objectives and indicators
Public Health Ontario
How do we know if our campaigns are successful? What should we measure? This article explains how it simply comes down to developing great outcome objectives and indicators. In this information piece, menus of indicators are presented for the individual level, network level, organizational level and societal level. A long list of supporting literature is provided as well as a list of sources of indicators.
Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) and Statistics Canada
This is the 14th in a series of annual reports. It presents the most recent data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) and Statistics Canada on a broad range of measures. This report seeks to answer two fundamental questions: “How healthy are Canadians?” and “How healthy is the Canadian health system?”. The indicators were selected based on directions provided at three National Consensus Conferences on Health Indicators. Each indicator falls into one of the five dimensions of the internationally recognized Health Indicator Framework. The dimensions include: health status, non-medical determinants of health; health system performance; community and health system characteristics; and equity.
Health Canada
Health Canada’s indicator reports are published every two years. On this webpage, you will find links to the reports from 2002- 2012.
Core indicators for public health
Association of Public Health Epidemiologists in Ontario (APHEO)
This website contains definitions (but not data) for over 120 public health indicators. Public health epidemiologists in Ontario collaborated with various partners to collate extensive information on each indicator. The result is a resource that enhances accurate and standardized reporting of information.
Footnote 1 The Health Communication Unit OHPP 2.0 Learning Centre: Online Health Program Planner 2.0 (Return to footnote 1 source paragraph.)