A case study of an academic-stakeholder partnership: Evaluation of the '10 000 Lives' smoking cessation health promotion program

Issue AddressedIn Australia, smoking prevalence is higher in regional areas than in metropolitan cities; Central Queensland, a central-east district of Queensland, has substantially higher smoking rates than the state average. In November 2017, Central Queensland Public Health Unit (CQPHU) launched the '10 000 Lives' initiative to reduce the smoking prevalence in the region. The initiative partnered with local hospitals and community organisations to increase the uptake of interventions like Quitline in the region. Evaluating a program like '10 000 Lives' is critical for evidence-based health promotion practice. CQPHU partnered with a large metropolitan Australian university to evaluate the '10 000 Lives' through a scheme that provided a stipend for a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) student. MethodsThis narrative report describes the experience of evaluating '10 000 Lives' in a collaborative partnership between CQPHU and the public health academia. ResultsA PhD student was recruited to join this collaboration, and both developed a program logic model and completed a process and impact evaluation. This evaluation provided an ideal 'living' case study to embed in the Master of Public Health curriculum and provided the PhD student with teaching experience delivering a demonstration of public health in practice. ConclusionThe collaboration project was highly successful, exemplifying research, learning and practical integration for all partners. So What?The partnership demonstrated how universities can work with government health agencies to build practice-based evidence, and importantly give public health students authentic learning opportunities.