If you’ve ever conducted an evaluation of your tobacco cessation program, you may be familiar with the distinction between intent-to-treat and responder quit rates. In case you’re not familiar with these terms, read on. Not only will knowledge of these methodologies inform your future evaluations of all your health promotion programs, but it will help you:

• Identify the interventions that are best to offer your employees.
• Present outcome data on your program’s interventions — not just tobacco cessation, but interventions for any health risk — in a more credible manner.
• More readily identify “spin,” when it is applied to the success rate of treatments — for example, weight loss programs — in the lay press and in peer-reviewed journals. Read the rest of this entry »