Chapter 15 - Sustaining population benefit using evidence-based public health

Abstract

Public health professionals test various interventions based on population priority and assess the efficiency of the interventions in a limited setting. Following successful outcomes, they test the same interventions in real-world settings with or without some modifications and evaluate the effectiveness. The aim is to integrate successful interventions within the existing setting for continuous and extended population benefit. Such translation of research findings into policy or practice in health care takes more than a decade. Since testing of interventions consumes heavy resources in public health research (operational/implementation/health systems research), the interventions need to be continued in the routine setting to address the priority problems. The continuation of activities or procedures needs commitment from various stakeholders like the communities, organizations, funders, and political leaders. Such continuation of interventions with or without modifications leads to sustainable population benefit. This chapter discusses various definitions of sustainability, theories/models/frameworks for planning or evaluating sustainability in public health practice, and determinants of sustainability explained with case studies.