Design of Prevention Interventions

Abstract

The design of disease prevention and health promotion interventions is a complex process that involves careful decision-making about the health behaviors one aims to change or other outcomes one aims to achieve. This includes understanding the etiologic mechanisms associated with the behavior, such as the prevalence and the risk and protective factors that contribute to it; the intervention strategies that will be effective in producing behavior change; the population subgroups to target with these strategies; the most appropriate modes of program delivery and implementation; how to take into account the developmental stage and other characteristics of the target population; and other issues. A key task in intervention design is to develop and apply a thorough understanding of theory on the determinants of the target health behaviors or other outcomes as well as how to affect change in those behaviors and other outcomes. For the prevention science field to achieve its ultimate goal of improving public health, there must be ongoing development and testing of interventions that build on the latest basic scientific findings, methods, and theory. This chapter provides an overview of the intervention design process and describes three key stages in the process, including the application of a theoretical framework, building the intervention, and pilot testing the intervention.