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Sequential Analysis

A Tool for Monitoring Program Delivery

New York State Department of Health

Margaret B. Hoff

New York State Department of Health

The sensitivity and simplicity of Wald's sequential analysis test in monitoring a preventive health care program are dis cussed in this paper. The technique has had widespread application in industry. The common element between monitoring industnal output and program evaluation is the needforprompt reliablefeedback of information. Sequential analysis was designed to test an hypothesis following each observation or each set of observations (herein differentiating it from classical hy pothesis testing of fixed-size samples). Predictors of "program success" can be ascertained within the short term and hard data can be available for progress reports or continuation proposals and funding re quests. We present the method along with illustrative data from the surveillance of a contract which provides breast cancer screening services to low-income minority women in Central Harlem. These data exemplify the usefulness and expedience of employing sequential methods to program monitoring.

Evaluation & the Health Professions, Vol. 4, No. 2, 129-143 (1981)
DOI: 10.1177/016327878100400202


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