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Preprint
Unifying Prevention and Promotion for Effective Translation of Science to Practice
Journal of children's services : research informing policy and practice, Vol.3, pp.32-45
Pier Professional
2008
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/2598
Abstract
Over the past 30 years, researchers have documented effective, theory-based programs and practices that improve the health and wellbeing of children. In order to produce measurable improvements in public health, such practices must be institutionalized; however, there exist a number of barriers to translating what we know from science to what we do in practice. In the present paper, we discuss a number of those barriers, including cultural differences between those who espouse a public health, prevention science approach versus those who espouse a strengths-building, health promotion approach; practical difficulties in documenting the evidence base for existing or newly developed programs and practices; and inflexibility of standardized programs and resulting insensitivity to local contexts. We discuss common ground between prevention and promotion perspectives and highlight emerging methods that facilitate adoption of science-based practice into community-based services. Summary of policy and practice implications --Children's services will produce measurable improvements in public health only when science-based prevention practices are institutionalized on a large scale -- One barrier to institutionalization is the false dichotomy between prevention ("deficit"-oriented) and promotion ("strengths"-oriented) approaches. --In fact, the two approaches have more commonalities than differences; discussion of these commonalities may prove helpful in partnerships between researchers and practitioners -- Another barrier is the difficulty in documenting that programs are effective -- High-quality programming is characterized by theory-based planning, monitoring for continuous improvement of quality, and measurement of outcomes. Programming budget and resources should be dedicated to these activities. -- A third barrier is the inflexibility and cost of implementing packaged, evidence-based programs -- Flexible solutions are emerging that facilitate adoption of science-based practices, among them an approach called Evidence-Informed Program Improvement (Small, Cooney, & Connor, 2009) and the incorporation of "kernels" into existing services (Embry & Biglan, 2008)
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Details
- Title
- Unifying Prevention and Promotion for Effective Translation of Science to Practice
- Creators
- Laura G Hill (Author)Louise A Parker (Author)Jenifer K McGuire (Author)Rayna Sage (Author)
- Publication Details
- Journal of children's services : research informing policy and practice, Vol.3, pp.32-45
- Academic Unit
- Human Development, Department of
- Publisher
- Pier Professional
- Grant note
- Portions of this paper appeared originally in the Healthy living literature review of the 4-H Healthy Living mission mandate, National 4-H Headquarters, Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service of the United States Department of Agriculture (http://www.national4-hheadquarters.gov/about/4h_health.htm).
- Identifiers
- 99900502119301842
- Copyright
- In copyright ; openAccess ; http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ ; http://purl.org/eprint/accessRights/OpenAccess
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Preprint