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[ Recorded presentation ] Recorded presentation

Best Practices in Implementing Lifestyle Interventions in the WISEWOMAN Program: Adaptable Strategies for Public Health Programs

Melanie Besculides, DrPH1, Heather Zaveri, MPP1, Charlotte Hanson, MPH, MS1, Rosanne Farris, PhD2, Karen Gregory-Mercado, PhD, MPH2, and Julie Will, PhD2. (1) Mathematica Policy Research, Inc, PO Box 2393, Princeton, NJ 08543, 609-945-3369, mbesculides@mathematica-mpr.com, (2) Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4770 Buford Hwy NE, Mailstop K47, Atlanta, GA 30341

Best practices is a popular term that, in the programmatic setting, refers to processes that lead to the implementation of an intervention using the most appropriate strategies for a given population and setting. An approach to generating best practices focuses on gathering practice-based evidence from operating programs. We used this approach to systematically identify best practices in the Well-Integrated Screening and Evaluation for Women Across the Nation (WISEWOMAN) program, operated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The public health program screens middle-aged, un- or underinsured women for risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease and provides a lifestyle intervention to encourage behavior change.

This presentation will briefly discuss our methods for identifying best practices and focus primarily on describing a subset of best practices. Specifically, we will present best practices that can be applied beyond the WISEWOMAN program and for which we identified a difference in how high-performing (versus low-performing) sites used the same practice. For instance, we found that although many programs offered incentives to self-monitor behavior (e.g., pedometers), high-performing sites provided one-on-one instruction on how to use the incentives. We will focus on this subset because we have a reasonable idea of what led to the success of these practices, which will be helpful to others interested in implementing them. The best practice findings may be useful to a broad range of practitioners interested in strategies to recruit and engage program participants, to facilitate and maintain their behavior change, and to retain them in programs.

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  • Learning Objectives