Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 1, 2025

Involving Individuals with Developmental Language Disorder and Their Parents/Carers in Research Priority Setting
Published on: June 6, 2020
Improving child health service interventions through a Theory of Change: A scoping review
Benjamin Jones1, Amy Paterson2, Mike English1,3
1Health Systems Collaborative, Centre for Global Health Research, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, United Kingdom.
Background:
The objective of this scoping review was to map how child health service interventions develop, utilise, and refine theories of change. A Theory of Change (ToC) is a tool for designing, implementing, and evaluating interventions that is being increasingly used by child health practitioners who are aiming to enact change in health services.
Methods:
A published protocol guided this scoping review. Relevant publications were identified through selected electronic databases and grey literature via a search strategy. The main inclusion criteria were any child health service intervention globally that described their ToC or ToC development process. These were applied by two independent reviewers. Data relevant to the research sub-questions were extracted, charted and discussed.
Findings:
38 studies were included in the analysis. This scoping review highlights the disparate and inconsistent use, and reporting of ToCs in the child health service intervention literature.
Conclusion:
A ToC may be a helpful tool to enact change in a child health service but careful consideration must be undertaken by the child health service regarding how to maximise the benefits of doing a ToC, and how to accurately report it.
More Related Videos
14:43A Novel Method for Involving Women of Color at High Risk for Preterm Birth in Research Priority Setting
Published on: January 12, 2018
06:05The Participant-Reported Implementation Update and Score PRIUS: A Novel Method for Capturing Implementation-Related Data Over Time
Published on: February 19, 2021
Related Concept Videos
Methods Of Healthcare Delivery System
Managed Care System:
The managed care system is designed to control the cost while maintaining the quality of care. The patient's care from admission to discharge is planned by the primary care provider or the case manager, also known as the gatekeeper. In a managed care system, the number of care providers is...
Levels of Health Promotion and Illness Prevention
In primary prevention, actions taken before disease onset prevent the disease from...
Community Based Intervention
Foundations of Community Mental Health Programs
Central to the success of community-based interventions is the...
Models of Health Promotion and Illness Prevention I
The health belief model (HBM) attempts to predict health-related behavior in specific belief patterns. According to the HBM, a person's...
Models of Health Promotion and Illness Prevention II
The agent-host-environment model states that disease results...
Primary Healthcare Services
In 1978, international leaders convened in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan, for what would be a pivotal event in global health. The Alma-Ata Declaration was the first to call...