Evaluation of health programs, strategies, and actions: a dialogue with critical realism

Abstract

Critical realism can be defined as an approach, in terms of philosophy of science and social theory, which proposes a scientific model of explanation about reality that denies the traditional epistemological poles of the positivism and relativism (or idealism). Gathers different authors and has implications over the debate about the future of contemporary sociological theory. In relation to the field of evaluation of social policies and programs in health, the critical realistic approach brought news perspectives on what it means evidences, impacts and results of the interventions. This theoretical essay aims to present the main contributions of critical realism to the evaluation of policies, programs and interventions in health as well as to dialogue with authors that had debated and reflected about the ontology of the programs in the evaluation practices and its implications for the design of these interventions. This study shows some connections between critical realism and evaluation in health highlighting aspects under its influence as for instance ‘theory driven evaluation’, with special regards to realistic evaluation.