Research & Evaluation

VMG's Research and Evaluation Practice focuses on providing independent performance monitoring, data management, surveillance, and services to help strengthen interventions, inform the evidence base, increase impact, and improve understanding of what works. VMG’s experts specialize in designing and implementing domestic and global process and outcome evaluations, assessing agency capacity, monitoring program progress, and managing and analyzing data to ensure that the progress and impact are visible.

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Targeted Services

Evaluation Planning

Facilitate innovative processes to guide group decision- making, identify priority evaluation questions, and map outcomes to data sources to develop a comprehensive and cost-effective plan.

Evaluability Assessments

Determine the extent to which programs already underway or with limited data sources can be adequately evaluated to answer high-priority questions.

Needs Assessments

Collaborate with federal agencies, states, and communities to assess their public health needs and align activities with program goals and outcomes.

Evaluation Design

Provide an in-depth understanding of the available data sources across infectious and chronic diseases and design a feasible evaluation using mixed methods, qualitative and quantitative, to ensure rigorous evaluation results.

Performance Monitoring

Define key performance measures and implement systems for recipients to report data. Use state-of-the-art technology to build systems that ensure quality data.

Technical Assistance

Provide programmatic and evaluation support and guidance to recipients, including assistance on data quality assessments and submissions.

Evaluation Implementation

Perform mixed-method data collection and analysis to conduct a process, impact, and/or summative evaluation. Collect and analyze both qualitative and quantitative data and/or conduct secondary data analysis to answer key questions.

Project Management

Implement project management tools derived from industry best practices and to provide administrative, coordination, and communication support for public health programs. Maintain timelines and deliverables to ensure high quality products.

Data Analytics | Information Technology

Provide data management, coding, interpretation, analysis, and reporting services, including data visualization, SharePoint development, and web and software development.

The VMG team includes expert consultants in research, monitoring and evaluation

Debra J. Holden, PhD Director, Research & Evaluation

Our research and evaluation practice is led by Dr. Debra Holden, a community health psychologist with more than 30 years of experience conducting public health and healthcare program implementation, research, and evaluation at the federal, state, and local levels.

She has led recent national evaluation projects for organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Health Resources and Services Administration, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). She gained much of her project management experience and honed her leadership skills while working for over 18 years at RTI International and has since been working primarily with small businesses to support their efforts to build their federal contracting businesses.

Her areas of expertise span the research continuum from conception and design of studies to implementation and dissemination. An emphasis of her research has been in facilitating strategic and evaluation planning, including the publication of a book to educate others on the processes and tools she has developed, A Practical Guide to Program Evaluation Planning. This is included in university libraries worldwide.