Why the Community Guide is relevant to you

• Limited resources for community health mean that what is available must be used as efficiently as possible.
• The Community Guide synthesizes a vast amount of research into findings of what works in public health.
• The Community Guide can help you justify your choices of programs and make stronger arguments in funding requests.

Program Planning and Evaluation

• As an aid in Program Planning, the Community Guide produces findings about the effectiveness of population-based interventions. We recommend these be used in step 3 of the 5-step process below.
• Use the links to your left to see what is effective in any of the listed topic areas. Most topic areas have public health oriented commentary articles in addition to the articles that discuss the details of the findings. And the “About the Guide” section contains a link to general introduction articles.

  Step 1: Assess the primary health issues in your community
  Suggested resources:
  National Public Health Performance Standards
  
  MAPP (Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships)
  
  APEX-PH (Assessment Protocol for Excellence in Public Health)

  Step 2: Develop measurable objectives to assess progress in addressing these health issues
  Suggested resources:
  Healthy People 2010 objectives
  State health departments: state-level priorities for Healthy People objectives
  
  Healthy People 2010 Leading Health Indicators
  
  HEDIS® (Health Plan Employer Data and Information Set) performance measures

  Step 3: Select effective interventions to help achieve these objectives
  Suggested resources:
  Guide to Clinical Preventive Services (Clinical Guide)
  
  National Guideline Clearinghouse

  Step 4: Implement the selected interventions
  Suggested resources:
  Implementation resources at www.PreventionInfo.org

  Step 5: Evaluate the selected interventions
  Suggested resources:
  Framework for Program Evaluation in Public Health

  Resources relevant to the whole process
  Community Tool Box
  
  Cancer Control PLANET (Plan, Link, Act, Network with Evidence-based Tools)

Why the Community Guide Should be a Standard Resource

• Findings are based on science-based systematic reviews of all available literature on evidence of effectiveness and economic efficiency.
• Interventions reviewed include the complete range of prevention strategies, including healthcare system changes, provider and client strategies, policies, laws, worksite interventions, and community-based methods such as mass media campaigns.
• Topics addressed encompass disease prevention (e.g., vaccine-preventable diseases), behavior change (e.g., tobacco use prevention) and environmental changes (e.g., designing communities to encourage physical activity).
• Community Guide findings complement existing decision support tools such as health data, performance objectives (e.g., Healthy People 2010 or HEDIS), and model programs.
• Community Guide systematic reviews identify gaps in evidence on effectiveness, indicating where additional research is needed.

Other uses for the Community Guide

• Encourage the use of effective interventions through grant guidance and planning criteria.
• Focus existing research or seek out resources for additional studies on interventions shown to have insufficient evidence.

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