e-Book Highlight: Evidence-Based Public Health

Posted by Javier Crespo on August 5th, 2021 Posted in: Announcements, Blog, PHDL Resources, Public Health

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Evidence-Based Public Health brings  the concepts and practice of evidence-based public health to practitioners and others interested in public health.  The authors follow a step-by-step process in designing and implementing public health programs that apply the evidence in designing public health interventions, policies, and practices.

The book offers a sequential (but seldom linear) framework for learning and doing evidence based public health:

• Assess the community
• Quantify the issue
• Develop an issue statement
• Summarize the scientific literature
• Develop a program and policy options
• Develop an action plan to implement the options
• Evaluate the program or policy.

Each process in the framework has a chapter devoted to its particular concepts and methods.  Methods related to research and economic assessment can span multiple processes in the framework. In economic assessment, analytical tools are covered to pose and answer the question “Is this program or policy worth doing?” (Chapter 4).  The research phase or information gathering process is concerned with finding the right research studies and surveillance data to begin answering questions like ‘Should a public health action be taken?’ and ‘What action should be taken?’ (Chapter 3).

In the chapter Searching the Scientific Literature, four broad categories are given in considering evidence-based decision making.

• Original research articles
• Narrative review articles
• Systematic review articles
• Guidelines (where research is translated  into formal statements advising practitioners on effective interventions)

The authors provide thorough approaches to conducting systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and searching and applying the research literature.

After selecting and organizing search results, the authors recommend creating an evidence matrix of the articles selected to structure and organize the research to more easily identify methods, criteria, and draw comparisons across the selected research (Chapter 8).

Evidence-Based Public Health is an e-book that was added to the PHDL collection last year.  For more information on other books added to the PHDL, read our  announcement for 2021-2022 updates .

Our e-books are on the STAT-Ref Platform from medical information provider TDS Health.

 

Anjali D. Deshpande, PhD, MPH, Elizabeth A. Baker, PhD, MPH, Kathleen N. Gillespie, PhD, Ross C. Brownson, PhD. 2018. Evidence-Based Public Health – 3rd Ed. Oxford University Press. eISBN-10: 0-19-062094-3, eISBN-13: 978-0-19-062094-3. STAT!Ref Online Electronic Medical Library.  https://online.statref.com/document/Qp3XGLdAjbY4J6vx3gfOGD. 8/3/2021 10:30:28 AM CDT (UTC -05:00).