Scope and organization of the Guide to Community Preventive Services

Background: The diverse nature of the target audience (i.e., public health decision-makers) for the Guide to Community Preventive Services: Systematic Reviews and Evidence-Based Recommendations (the Guide) dictates that it mu st be broad in scope. In addition, for the Guide to be most useful for its target audience, its organization and format must be carefully considered. Determining the Scope of the Guide Healthy People objectives and actual cau ses of death were used to determine the contents A priority setting exercis e resulted in the selection of 15 topics for systematic the Guide: reviews using the following criteria: burden of the problem, preventability, relati onship to other public health initiatives, usefulness of the package of top ics selected and level of current research and intervention activity in pub lic and private sectors. Interventions within each topic target state and l ocal levels and include population-based strategies, individual strategies in other than clinical settings and group strategies. Organization The Guide is organized into: Introduction, Reviews and Recomme ndations (three sections: of the Guide: Changing Risk Behaviors, Reducing D iseases, Injuries, or Impairments, and Addressing Environmental and Ecosyst em Challenges), Appendixes, and Indexes. Discussion: The scope and organization of the Guide were determined using r elevant public health criteria and expert opinion to provide a useful and a ccessible document to a broad target audience. While the final contents of the Guide may change during development, the working table of contents desc ribed in this paper provides a framework for development of the Guide and c onveys its scope and intention. Medical Subject Headings (MeSH): community preventive services, burden of d isease (C) 2000 American Journal of Preventive Medicine.