The Community Guide provides a research agenda on each topic studied, to help researchers in planning and conducting research and in generating proposals for additional research funds.

• Every topic reviewed by the Community Guide (accessible via the navigation bar to the left) has a list of research questions suggested for further study.
• Nearly half of the Community Guide systematic reviews result in ”insufficient evidence” findings. One of the major contributions of the Community Guide to the research community is to point out the areas where more studies, or better studies, are needed. Many funding organizations now recognize the critical role of the Community Guide in identifying legitimate areas for further research.
• In our book, The Guide to Community Preventive Services, Chapter 12 is devoted exclusively to Continuing Research Needs. It contains specific measures to improve the quality of intervention research, such as:
  • Setting priorities for topics to review
  • Improving the quality of studies, for use in evidence-based research
  • Identifying theoretical bases via conceptual models
  • Identifying outcome measures
• Recently there have been calls to encourage researchers to consult evidence reviews for information on research gaps (and settled research questions) before doing any primary studies.

The Community Guide depends on researchers to conduct the needed studies that can move prevention research forward. We’re here to help you in determining which topics need more studies and which have already been studied too much—to help increase your chances to receive funding and to get your results published.