{"id":320,"date":"2025-10-07T12:47:25","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T16:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/?post_type=chapter&#038;p=320"},"modified":"2026-05-27T12:17:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T16:17:37","slug":"ex-ante-ex-post","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/chapter\/ex-ante-ex-post\/","title":{"raw":"11.4 Ex-ante and ex-post","rendered":"11.4 Ex-ante and ex-post"},"content":{"raw":"The process for conducting the needs assessment will differ depending on whether the intervention already exists or is new. For a new intervention, one will want to characterize the context. Given the pace of change spurred by climate change and other environmental threats and their impact on health and social well-being, evaluators need to adopt a prospective perspective in their analysis. This involves not only conducting a diagnostic of the current context but also anticipating future risks and community needs.\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>What challenges is the community facing?<\/li>\r\n \t<li>What major problems will the community face given the impacts of climate warming and other environmental and social changes?<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Which of the important problems identified can be addressed through collective action? Some problems may have no feasible solutions and can be discarded. The feasibility of addressing a problem\u2014considering available technologies and resources\u2014needs to be taken into consideration.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>What should the objectives of the intervention be? What causes should be targeted?<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Which population should be targeted by the intervention?<\/li>\r\n \t<li>What partnerships would be relevant? (adapted from Champagne et al. 2011).<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\nIf the program already exists, one may want to question the relevance of the intervention if it feels like the needs or context may have changed (Rossi et al., 2019). Considering the current environmental state and the increasing disruptions impacting communities that require rapid and profound changes, and given that previous needs assessments often took for granted or overlooked environmental conditions, it is pertinent to reconsider interventions with regard to their socio-environmental impacts. The context has changed and continues to evolve fast.\r\n\r\nConducting a needs assessment of existing interventions is an exercise which consists of deciding whether interventions should be sustained, modified, or terminated. When the program already exists, the question of its relevance includes understanding its contribution in relation to the changing context; questions of relevance then extend to other considerations of existing alternatives and whether there are more effective or efficient options.","rendered":"<p>The process for conducting the needs assessment will differ depending on whether the intervention already exists or is new. For a new intervention, one will want to characterize the context. Given the pace of change spurred by climate change and other environmental threats and their impact on health and social well-being, evaluators need to adopt a prospective perspective in their analysis. This involves not only conducting a diagnostic of the current context but also anticipating future risks and community needs.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What challenges is the community facing?<\/li>\n<li>What major problems will the community face given the impacts of climate warming and other environmental and social changes?<\/li>\n<li>Which of the important problems identified can be addressed through collective action? Some problems may have no feasible solutions and can be discarded. The feasibility of addressing a problem\u2014considering available technologies and resources\u2014needs to be taken into consideration.<\/li>\n<li>What should the objectives of the intervention be? What causes should be targeted?<\/li>\n<li>Which population should be targeted by the intervention?<\/li>\n<li>What partnerships would be relevant? (adapted from Champagne et al. 2011).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If the program already exists, one may want to question the relevance of the intervention if it feels like the needs or context may have changed (Rossi et al., 2019). Considering the current environmental state and the increasing disruptions impacting communities that require rapid and profound changes, and given that previous needs assessments often took for granted or overlooked environmental conditions, it is pertinent to reconsider interventions with regard to their socio-environmental impacts. The context has changed and continues to evolve fast.<\/p>\n<p>Conducting a needs assessment of existing interventions is an exercise which consists of deciding whether interventions should be sustained, modified, or terminated. When the program already exists, the question of its relevance includes understanding its contribution in relation to the changing context; questions of relevance then extend to other considerations of existing alternatives and whether there are more effective or efficient options.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"menu_order":4,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[49],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-320","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","chapter-type-numberless"],"part":312,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/320\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":684,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/320\/revisions\/684"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/312"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/320\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=320"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.bccampus.ca\/foundationsofevaluation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}