Designing an Intervention
Choosing interventions that are well-matched to local needs and capabilities, and then carefully implementing those interventions, are vital steps for increasing healthy eating and active living. Designing effective interventions requires that you use all that has been accomplished and learned about the community throughout the planning process in terms of needs, resources, and interests.
A comprehensive intervention action plan:
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When considering intervention components and strategies, lessons learned from what has worked in the past can provide a valuable foundation for future work. Those strategies, activities, and approaches that research and evaluation have found to be effective in promoting public health are called “best practices”. Reviewing these best practices and model programs saves communities from “reinventing the wheel” and gives immediate direction to program planning. Information about best practices and model programs can help the community determine how to proceed with the specifics of developing its interventions (e.g., whom to involve, which levels should be targeted first, sequence of events and activities). Provided as support material to illustrate current examples and recommended healthy eating active living interventions is:
Task Forces Guide to Community Preventive Services
CT Local health department-led initiatives
Intervention strategies:
To be effective, intervention plans should use educational, policy, and environmental strategies. Together the three intervention strategies can be helpful in changing knowledge, attitudes, skills, behavior, policies and environmental factors to improve the health and well-being of the community. Examples of activities that might be included under each strategy are as follows:
- Educational Strategies: Communication and skill-building.
- Communication methods: media advocacy, lecture-discussion, print materials, audiovisual aids, educational television, and programmed learning.
- Training methods: classes to develop skills, simulations and games, small-group discussions.
- Policy Strategies: Policies, regulations, laws as well as informal rules and understandings of government and local organizations.
- Policies designed to restrict or limit unhealthy actions.
- Policies designed to encourage healthy eating and active living: flex time at worksites for employees to engage in physical activity or extended hours to use community recreational facilities.
- Environmental Strategies: Physical or social environmental changes.
- Adding more street lights to discourage crime and encourage physical activity.
- Converting railroad beds into walking trails
- Constructing shower facilities at worksites for employees who exercise
Program Settings:
The intervention strategies in a community health promotion program are most effective when done in as many of the following settings as appropriate. These settings serve as channels through which you can reach your target group as well as sites for using educational, policy, and environmental strategies.
School: Schools can be viewed as the most important setting for ultimately educating the entire population and more immediately for educating children and youth. A comprehensive school health program can be conducted in schools, and projects can be assigned that require parental involvement, thus educating parents.
Health care Delivery System: Including hospitals, clinics, and offices. Health care providers can lend expertise and credibility to your intervention efforts. They can also provide preventive education change. They can also refer patients to health promotion services in the community and distribute health promotion materials.
Worksite: Work settings and coworkers have a substantial impact on one’s health; educational programs and policy and environmental actions that support health can be beneficial to both management and employees. Schools and health care facilities, are also worksites.
Community: Including the entire community, public facilities such as parks, local agencies, and social, service, faith, and civic organizations. The community has many organizations, groups, and public facilities that can serve as settings for interventions designed to reach people where they shop and play. These groups can examine how they function and also serve as strong advocates for educational, policy, and environmental changes within the community.
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Included as supplements to help illustrate recommended strategies and model programs targeting physical activity and nutrition within a variety of settings are the following support material:
