|
The Guide To Community Preventive Services Website
www.thecommunityguide.org
What more than 700 studies reveal about what
works in public health to improve the health of communities and
populations and how to use this information.
Website
Purpose, Description
and Intended Audiences
|
Get
Planning, Training and Policy Making Tools from
www.thecommunityguide.org
The Guide
to Community Preventive Services (Community Guide) is
led by the independent Task Force on Community Preventive
Services and is supported by CDC within the Epidemiology Program
Office’s Division of Prevention Research and Analytic Methods.
Supporting Healthy People 2010 objective 23-17, we
conduct systematic reviews of population-based interventions to
change risk behaviors, address environmental challenges, and
reduce the burden of disease, injury, and impairment.
Interventions found to be effective are recommended for use.
This website provides convenient access to a range of
information sources:
At a glance - A two-page overview of the
Community Guide with a list of findings published to date.
|
Everything You Need to Know About What
Works and More
Resources for public health are limited.
One way to get the most from the resources you have is to
use those interventions that have been proven effective and
focus research on those areas where documented gaps in the
evidence exist.
The Community Guide has done much of the hard work
already, combining scientific discovery, subject matter
expertise, and practical experience in public health.
Its independent Task Force completes systematic reviews
of the available literature and provides recommendations on use
or non-use of interventions based on the strength of the
evidence.
Public health decision-making without checking the Community
Guide is like using a slot machine.
You have no idea if you will be successful until you’ve
already invested your money. Why gamble with your valuable
resources? The Community Guide can help you make sound
investments and simplify your efforts to keep up with scientific
advances in public health practice.
|
Recommendations and findings
– For each topic, users can access published articles containing Community
Guide recommendations and other findings, methods, and summaries
of each reviewed intervention, including economic efficiency (where
available) and generalizability.
Topics Include
Education and training - Tutorial slide sets with
speaker notes that explain how to use the findings in public health
and community settings. The slide sets also include an overview of the
methods used to conduct reviews.
And more… - A list of Task Force Members,
descriptions of our methods, examples of how the findings have been
used by others.
Who Wants, Needs, or Should be Using the
Community Guide?
The
findings can and should be used by anyone involved in the planning,
funding, and implementation of population-based services and policies
to improve community health.
Public health professionals can use
these findings to
-
Aid
in program planning
- Encourage
the use of effective interventions through
grant guidance and planning
criteria
-
Focus existing research or seek out resources for
additional studies
Providers of health-care services can use
these findings to
- Implement effective system level interventions that improve delivery of
effective clinical services (e.g., reminder / recall systems for
tobacco control and standing orders for adult vaccinations)
Purchasers of health-care services (e.g., Employers)
-
Can use Community Guide findings on effective health care system-level interventions
in constructing and selecting benefit plans
Law and Policy makers can use the evidence to improve population health through
-
Broad-based policies (e.g., smoking bans and
restrictions)
- Targeted laws (e.g., child safety seats)
- Educational requirements (e.g., vaccination requirements
for school admission or
school-based physical
education)
-
Communitywide interventions (e.g., water fluoridation)
Community-based organizations can use
these findings to
-
Encourage selection of proven strategies for local
interventions
Researchers can
-
Use “insufficient evidence” findings in planning and conducting
research and in proposals to garner additional resources for research
on these topics
|
