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International Journal of Behavioral Medicine
Published in: International Journal of Behavioral Medicine 3/2015

01-06-2015

Disseminating Policy and Environmental Change Interventions: Insights from Obesity Prevention and Tobacco Control

Authors: Jennifer Leeman, Allison E. Myers, Kurt M. Ribisl, Alice S. Ammerman

Published in: International Journal of Behavioral Medicine | Issue 3/2015

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Abstract

Background

Public health and other practitioners increasingly are being asked to implement policy and environmental change interventions, yet many practitioners lack the knowledge, skills, and resources to do so. In response to this need, a growing number of organizations are disseminating evidence-based interventions (EBIs) and building practitioners’ capacity to use those interventions in practice. Although advances have been made on approaches to disseminating individual-level EBIs, little is known about the optimal way to disseminate EBIs to promote policy and environmental change.

Purpose

This paper describes the approach that two projects developed to disseminate policy and environmental change interventions. The Center for Training and Research Translation (Center TRT) disseminates EBIs to promote physical activity and healthy eating. Counter Tobacco disseminates EBIs to counter tobacco product sales and marketing in the retail environment.

Method

Both Centers (1) identify the best available evidence, (2) disseminate menus of intervention strategies, (3) provide implementation guidance, (4) incorporate stories from the field, (5) build practitioners’ capacity, and (6) integrate dissemination into practitioners’ existing social networks. The Centers’ process evaluations included website analytics and online surveys.

Result

Over 26,000 unique visitors accessed the Center TRT website in 2012 and over 17,000 have accessed Counter Tobacco’s site since its launch in August 2011. The majority of respondents to Centers’ surveys agreed that resources were easy to access and use.

Conclusion

Both Centers have had success reaching their intended audiences. Research is now needed to assess the extent of practitioners’ use of Center resources and the impact of the resulting interventions.
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Metadata
Title
Disseminating Policy and Environmental Change Interventions: Insights from Obesity Prevention and Tobacco Control
Authors
Jennifer Leeman
Allison E. Myers
Kurt M. Ribisl
Alice S. Ammerman
Publication date
01-06-2015
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
International Journal of Behavioral Medicine / Issue 3/2015
Print ISSN: 1070-5503
Electronic ISSN: 1532-7558
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-014-9427-1

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