Designed for students and practitioners, this practical book shows how to do evidence-based research in public health. As a great deal of evidence-based practice occurs online, it focuses on how to find, use, and interpret online sources of public health information. It also includes examples of community-based participatory research and shows how to link data with community preferences and needs.
There are at least three ways in which a public health program or policy may not reach stated goals for success: 1) Choosing an intervention approach whose effectiveness is not established in the scientific literature; 2) Selecting a potentially effective program or policy yet achieving only weak, incomplete implementation or "reach," thereby failing to attain objectives; 3) Conducting an inadequate or incorrect evaluation that results in a lack of generalizable knowledge on the effectiveness of a program or policy; and 4) Paying inadequate attention to adapting an intervention to the population and context of interest To enhance evidence-based practice, this book addresses all four possibilities and attempts to provide practical guidance on how to choose, carry out, and evaluate evidence-based programs and policies in public health settings. It also begins to address a fifth, overarching need for a highly trained public health workforce. This book deals not only with finding and using scientific evidence, but also with implementation and evaluation of interventions that generate new evidence on effectiveness. Because all these topics are broad and require multi-disciplinary skills and perspectives, each chapter covers the basic issues and provides multiple examples to illustrate important concepts. In addition, each chapter provides links to the diverse literature and selected websites for readers wanting more detailed information. An indispensable volume for professionals, students, and researchers in the public health sciences and preventative medicine, this new and updated edition of Evidence-Based Public Health aims to bridge research and evidence with policies and the practice of public health.
When communities face complex public health emergencies, state local, tribal, and territorial public health agencies must make difficult decisions regarding how to effectively respond. The public health emergency preparedness and response (PHEPR) system, with its multifaceted mission to prevent, protect against, quickly respond to, and recover from public health emergencies, is inherently complex and encompasses policies, organizations, and programs. Since the events of September 11, 2001, the United States has invested billions of dollars and immeasurable amounts of human capital to develop and enhance public health emergency preparedness and infrastructure to respond to a wide range of public health threats, including infectious diseases, natural disasters, and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear events. Despite the investments in research and the growing body of empirical literature on a range of preparedness and response capabilities and functions, there has been no national-level, comprehensive review and grading of evidence for public health emergency preparedness and response practices comparable to those utilized in medicine and other public health fields. Evidence-Based Practice for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response reviews the state of the evidence on PHEPR practices and the improvements necessary to move the field forward and to strengthen the PHEPR system. This publication evaluates PHEPR evidence to understand the balance of benefits and harms of PHEPR practices, with a focus on four main areas of PHEPR: engagement with and training of community-based partners to improve the outcomes of at-risk populations after public health emergencies; activation of a public health emergency operations center; communication of public health alerts and guidance to technical audiences during a public health emergency; and implementation of quarantine to reduce the spread of contagious illness.
A follow up to Public Health Evidence: Tackling Health Inequalities, this book builds on the themes already introduced, and provides a broader perspective on an evidence-based approach to public health, concentrating on health inequalities.
As the demand for health services rises & the pressure on these services grows, decisions about the use of scarce resources are becoming even more difficult to make & more explicit. This text provides healthcare managers with the knowledge they need.
Demonstrating that public health and prevention program development is as much art as science, this book brings together expert program developers to offer practical guidance and principles in developing effective behavior-change curricula. Feinberg and the team of experienced contributors cover evidence-based programs addressing a range of physical, mental, and behavioral health problems, including ones targeting families, specific populations, and developmental stages. The contributors describe their own professional journeys and decisions in creating, refining, testing, and disseminating a range of programs and strategies. Readers will learn about selecting change-promoting targets based on existing research; developing and creating effective and engaging content; considering implementation and dissemination contexts in the development process; and revising, refining, expanding, abbreviating, and adapting a curriculum across multiple iterations. Designing Evidence-Based Public Health and Prevention Programs is essential reading for prevention scientists, prevention practitioners, and program developers in community agencies. It also provides a unique resource for graduate students and postgraduates in family sciences, developmental psychology, clinical psychology, social work, education, nursing, public health, and counselling.
Community and Public Health Nursing, 3rd Edition Rosanna F. DeMarco, PhD, RN, PHCNS-BC, APHN-BC, FAAN; and Judith Healey-Walsh, PhD, RN Turn evidence-based data into confident clinical decisions. Succinct, approachable, and logically organized, Community and Public Health Nursing, 3rd Edition, helps you develop the critical thinking skills and complex reasoning abilities you need to connect data with effective decisions in community and public health practice. This extensively revised, heavily illustrated edition emphasizes an evidence-based perspective and focuses on the individual in the context of the community setting and on the global community to equip you for challenges you'll encounter throughout your nursing career. Case Studies stimulate your critical thinking and analytic skills. Evidence for Practice Briefs offer objective evidence obtained from research and guide you in making practice decisions. Practice Points highlight important practice considerations for fast reference. Student Perspectives make chapter content relatable with relevant insights from real students. Critical Thinking Questions test your ability to combine research, context, and judgment for effective critical analysis. Ethical Legal Issues vignettes alert you to ethical and legal concerns unique to community and public health nursing practice. How To Boxes detail specific steps for completing common tasks. Levels of Prevention Boxes help you master primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention of disease and illness. Chapter Highlights point out key chapter content to help you study efficiently. Key Concepts and Key Terms familiarize you with concepts and terminology essential to your understanding. Objectives help you identify observable goals for the completion of each chapter. Updated Healthy People 2020 coverage and learning activities help you meet national objectives and apply concepts to real-life scenarios. Community Resources connect you to sources of help or information available in most communities.
"This book provides an interdisciplinary approach summarising the key elements, issues, concepts, and procedures in developing and applying evidence-based practice. Discussions include programme evaluation, quality and operational improvement strategies, research grant applications, utilising statistical procedures, and more."--
The evidence-based medicine movement has been one of the most important influences on medicine in the latter half of the 1990s. This textbook on evidence-based decision-making--basing clinical decisions on the best available evidence from systematic research--is ideal for healthcare, medical, and nurse managers. It explains how evidence-based decision making can be applied to health policy and management decisions about groups of patients and populations, rather than decisions about the treatment of individuals. Its first edition was well reviewed and highly successful, and this new edition builds upon the success of the first.