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Session: The Wait is Over – The First Edition of the Guide to Community Preventive Services: Overview and Implications for Public Health Professionals
5096.0: Wednesday, November 10, 2004: 12:30 PM-2:00 PM
Oral
The Wait is Over – The First Edition of the Guide to Community Preventive Services: Overview and Implications for Public Health Professionals
The Guide to Community Preventive Services (Community Guide) fulfills the need among practitioners of public health to have, at their fingertips, the best information on what programs and policies work--to help them make better decisions. Since its initiation in 1996 as a Federal initiative led by the independent Task Force on Community Preventive Services, the Community Guide been responsible for the development and publication of over 100 systematic reviews of population-based interventions across public health topics including tobacco prevention and control, physical activity, vaccine preventable diseases and the social environment (e.g. housing, education and culturally competent care) and its potential for improving health. These findings help the public health community to ensure that their efforts are based on the most complete, systematic set of evidence-based findings. To date, findings have been available through peer reviewed articles and through the Community Guide website (www.thecommunityguide.org) With the release of the first edition of the Community Guide, public health practitioners will have access to a comprehensive resource for Community Guide methods, recommendations and suggestions for future research in nine areas: vaccine preventable diseases, tobacco prevention and control, diabetes, oral health, physical activity, the social environment and its potential for health improvement, violence prevention and early detection and control of cancer. The first edition of the Community Guide is an important milestone in the field of evidence-based public health and its application for building and enhancing the public health infrastructure, and addressing health disparities. This session will provide an overview of the Community Guide initiative, its methods and general findings, and how it can be used in the context of other evidence-based resources to support critical thinking to improve the community based public health infrastructure for assessment, planning and or evaluation. Particular attention will be focused on ways in which this resource can be practically utilized by public health professionals including those in state and local health departments, government agencies, clinicians, policy makers, purchasers of health care, and funders of public health research. Key individuals in the development of the Community Guide and leading scientists in the field of public health will present.
Learning Objectives: By the end of this session attendees will: 1. Be familiar with the Guide to Community Preventive Services and how to use it 2. Understand the utility and application of recommended interventions and “insufficient evidence” findings especially those that address issues related to improving health through the social or physical environment 3. Understand the context within which the Guide to Community Preventive Services can and should be used 4. Understand the Community Guide’s role in evidence-based public health and efforts to address and reduce health disparities
Organizer(s):Bradford Myers
12:30 PMFirst Edition of hte Guide to Community Preventive Services: An Overview and Implications for Public Health Professioals  [ Recorded presentation ]
Jonathan Fielding, MD, MPH
12:50 PMCDC Perspectives on the Community Guide
Stephen B. Thacker, MD, MSc
1:10 PMHarnessing the Science: What the Community Guide means to the field of public health
J. Michael McGinnis, MD
See individual abstracts for presenting author's disclosure statement and author's information.
Organized by:Community Health Planning and Policy Development
Endorsed by:Community-Based Public Health Caucus; Public Health Education and Health Promotion
CE Credits:CME, Health Education (CHES), Nursing

The 132nd Annual Meeting (November 6-10, 2004) of APHA