Glossary

P

Performance indicators: Quantifiable measurements that reflect a program or organization's progress towards established goals and objectives.

Physical environment factors: Physical surroundings (e.g. community layout and structure), specific mechanisms for injury (e.g. caliber of firearm) and the social environment (e.g. availability of firearms, existing laws and community attitudes towards violence).

Policy: The set of objectives and rules guiding the activities of an organization, administration, tribe, city, county, state or country.

Policy development: Policies may be either a regulatory or a non-regulatory action. Public health policy development refers to a governing body articulating, in writing, expectations for accomplishing public health goals, measurable objectives, and the expected results that are to be achieved.

Population: All the inhabitants of a given city, county, region, state or country.

Population-based health: Efforts to prevent disease, injury or violence directed at large groups of people as opposed to individuals.

Prevention: A strategy or approach that reduces the likelihood of risk of onset, or delays the onset of adverse health problems or reduces the harm resulting from conditions or behaviors. See also Primary prevention, Secondary prevention and Tertiary prevention.

Primary data: Original or new information collected specifically for the needs of your project. See also Data.

Primary prevention: Approaches that aim to prevent the injury or violent event from occurring. See also Prevention.

Problem analysis: Phase of program planning process in which existing data and reports and the current status of services and possible resources are reviewed in relationship to the identified problem in order to better understand the scope and nature of the problem. Sometimes this is referred to as "needs assessment" or sometimes "needs assessment" is referred to as the component of a problem analysis that focuses on service availability.

Process evaluation: Assessing what activities were implemented, the quality of the implementation, and the strengths and weaknesses of implementation. Process evaluation is used to produce useful feedback for program refinement, to determine which activities were more successful than others, to document successful processes for future replication and to demonstrate program activities before demonstrating outcomes. See also Evaluation.

Process objectives (also referred to as "operational" objectives): Specific, measurable statements of an activity to be carried out by the program or intervention. See also Objectives.

Program: A combined set of strategies and activities that has clearly stated goals from which all activities--as well as specific, observable, and measurable outcomes--are derived.

Protective factors: Behaviors, social influences or policies that have been shown, through scientific studies, to reduce vulnerability to a specific condition or behaviors.

Public health: Activities that society undertakes to assure the condition in which people can be healthy, including organized efforts to prevent, identify and counter threats to the health and safety of the public.

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