The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Evaluation is intimately involved in the California Tobacco Control Program. It records, documents, studies, analyzes, tells the stories, and shapes program interventions. Evaluation is critical in determining a program's progress and outcomes.

The California Tobacco Control Program features several evaluation and surveillance components that are critical to telling our story, maintaining our legitimacy with policymakers and accountability with taxpayers, and providing information and case studies upon which advocates can improve existing efforts and initiate new ones. The components include statewide surveys to determine the annual smoking prevalence rate, triennial surveys to determine larger tobacco use behavior trends, annual surveys that determine the illegal sales rates of tobacco products to youth, and biennial surveys of California youth tobacco use behaviors and attitudes in the school setting. Additionally, the Program requires each of its local contractors to evaluate their programs. Because the local programs constitute a major part of California's activities, documentation is essential so that others may learn from them.

Using the combined information from above mentioned data collection activities, the Program's evaluation staff construct the Logical Model following the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention's guideline to conduct comprehensive, state-level evaluation.