Discussion Post: Finding Evidence to Guide Our Strategies
Use of systematic reviews and meta-analysis have been presented as methods for selection of strategies to address population health problems. The Guide to Community Preventive Services uses such methods to develop its recommendations about the evidence for the effectiveness of public health interventions. However, as this article points out that evidence from intervention trials and research may not translate in the same way to different community populations and settings.
For this discussion, examine some of the examples provided in the article on the evidence for public health action to address the various health problems.
Some questions to guide our discussion:
1) How strong was the evidence for the interventions that were selected?
2) Where were there gaps between the available evidence and the interventions proposed by policy makers?
3) What happens where the scientific evidence is lacking?
4) What lessons can we learn about using what is in the scientific literature about the effectiveness of an intervention or policy decision and how this may or may not translate to our local community?
5) How do we adapt the science to the community and still assure that we can measure the impact of our intervention?
6) How does this guide us in developing our plans for community health improvement?