Evidence-Based Public Health Practice

Abstract

Evidence-based public health (EBPH) practice is the informed use of evidence to guide practice decisions across the range of public health arenas. Because the nature of evidence that is relevant to the health of populations is often fraught with research challenges different from the evidence relevant to the health of individuals, the term “evidence-informed public health practice” might more accurately describe the activity that is reported in this bibliography. Growing out of the evidence-based medicine movement, as well as evidence-based strategies in other disciplines such as education, evidence-based public health practice is at best in its infancy. This bibliography of select works attempts to provide a concise but broad listing of references that would be useful toward the advancement and growth of evidence-based approaches at the public health practice level of operation. That is to say, while advances have been made in improving the quality and reporting of public health research, the translation of research into effective public health practice is a journey in progress. Similarly, there is increasing recognition of the evolution of public health research toward more policy and practice relevance.