Angela Lawless - College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia
Fran Baum - Southgate Institute for Health Society and Equity, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia
Toni Delany-Crowe - Southgate Institute for Health Society and Equity, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia
Colin MacDougall - College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia
Carmel Williams - Department of Health and Ageing, Adelaide, SA, Australia
Dennis McDermott - The Poche Centre for Indigenous Health and Well-being, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia
Helen van Eyk - Southgate Institute for Health Society and Equity, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia

Background The importance of evaluating policy processes to achieve health equity is well recognised but such evaluation encounters methodological, theoretical and political challenges. This paper describes how a program theorybased evaluation framework can be developed and tested, using the example of an evaluation of the South Australian Health in All Policies (HiAP) initiative.   Methods A framework of the theorised components and relationships of the HiAP initiative was produced to guide evaluation. The framework was the product of a collaborative, iterative process underpinned by a policy-research partnership and drew on social and political science theory and relevant policy literature.   Results The process engaged key stakeholders to capture both HiAP specific and broader bureaucratic knowledge and was informed by a number of social and political science theories. The framework provides a basis for exploring the interactions between framework components and how they shape policy-making and public policy. It also enables an assessment of HiAP’s success in integrating health and equity considerations in policies, thereby laying a foundation for predicting the impacts of resulting policies.   Conclusion The use of a program theory-based evaluation framework developed through a consultative process and informed by social and political science theory has accommodated the complexity of public policy-making. The framework allows for examination of HiAP processes and impacts, and for the tracking of contribution towards distal outcomes through the explicit articulation of the underpinning program theory.

Healthy Public Policy, Evaluation, Inter-Sectoral Action, Health Equity, Social Determinants