The World Health Organization defines health inequities as differences in health outcomes that are systematic, avoidable, and unjust; and the result of poor social policies, unfair economic arrangements, and bad politics. This volume describes the role that evaluations can play in addressing health inequities. A key focus is on the types of capacities that need to be built to evaluate inequities.Bringing alive these questions around evaluation capacities are theory and practice studies from China, Chile, and India.This volume:Focuses on inequities in evaluation capacity building initiatives.Argues evaluations can be interventions themselves.Explores how evaluations can have influence in addressing inequities.Recognizes that innovations in evaluation capacity experiments are occurring in diverse countries and we have the opportunity to learn from such initiatives.This is the 154th issue in theNew Directions for Evaluation series from Jossey-Bass. It is an official publication of the American Evaluation Association.

Sanjeev Sridharan is the director of The Evaluation Centre for Complex Health Interventions at St. Michael's Hospital and an associate professor with the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto in Canada.

Kun Zhao is a professor at the China National Health Development Research Center in Beijing, China.

April Nakaima is a senior evaluator at The Evaluation Centre for Complex Health Interventions at St. Michael's Hospital in Canada.

Editors Notes 9Sanjeev Sridharan, Kun Zhao, April Nakaima

1. An Experiment on Building Evaluation Capacity to Address Health Inequities in China 17Kun Zhao, Sanjeev Sridharan, Marie-Gloriose Ingabire, Mo Yu, April Nakaima, Xue Li, Yue Xiao, Emily Chen

2. Evaluation at the Time of Health Systems Reform: Chinese Policymakers Need for a Robust System of Evaluations to Assess Progress in the Implementation of Reform Efforts 29Kun Zhao, April Nakaima, Wudong Guo, Yingpeng Qiu, Sanjeev Sridharan

3. Conceptual Indicators Framework for Strengthening the Chinese Health System 41Yue Xiao, Kun Zhao, Sanjeev Sridharan, Xiaohong Cao

4. Lessons Learned from Evaluating Chinas New Cooperative Medical Scheme 55Mo Yu, Xiaoyan He, Yunxin Hou, Xue Li

5. Toward a Structured Process to Evaluate Health Inequities: Lessons Learned from Developing and Implementing Evaluation Guidelines to Address Health Inequities 65Sanjeev Sridharan, Kun Zhao, April Nakaima, Joanna Maplazi, Mo Yu, Yingpeng Qiu

6. Equity Is Not an Intervention: Implications of EvaluationReflections from India 79Katherine Hay

7. The Challenge of Evaluating Equity in Health: Experiences from Indias Maternal Health Program 91Abhijit Das

8. Lessons from Chiles Use of System-Level Theory of Change to Implement a Policy Redesign Process to Address Health Inequities 101Orielle Solar, Patricia Frenz

9. Building Evaluation Capacity to Address Problems of Equity 115Fred Carden

10. Inequities and Evaluation Influence 127Melvin M. Mark

INDEX 139