160337 Integrating tobacco control and chronic disease interventions to address disparities

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Marlin L. Williams, MBA , Health Promotion Council, Philadelphia, PA
Tinesha Peterson, MPH , Health Promotion Council, Philadelphia, PA
Jennifer D. Keith, MPH , Research & Evaluation, Public Health Management Corporation, Philadelphia, PA
Increased tobacco and chronic disease related morbidity and mortality plague underserved populations. The adoption of evidence-based interventions and best practices has proven to reduce mortality and improve clinical outcomes among minority and other disparately affected groups. However, the rate of adoption for best practice guidelines has been slow. The Pennsylvania initiative, Bringing Evidence-Based Research Initiatives to Disparate Groups with Evaluation (Be-A-BRIDGE), will facilitate the use of evidence-based, best and promising approaches and other research in practice through a multi-disciplinary collaborative effort aimed at improving public health infrastructure at the community level.

BE-A-BRIDGE assembled an extensive partnership of organizations and agencies to leverage their collective resources in order to build the capacity of organizations addressing tobacco-related chronic diseases by providing necessary resources and training. Through an exhaustive research process, BE-A-BRIDGE identified and critiqued evidence-based resources while simultaneously assessing the needs of community based organizations through a statewide capacity survey. The survey assists in identifying whether an organization's infrastructure can sustain the selection, implementation and evaluation of evidence-based programs and best practices. In addition, regional summits provided a broad-base educational platform for community organizations, practitioners and other community service groups to learn about health assessments, population-specific interventions, successful grant writing techniques and best practice guidelines. An innovative updateable web-based clearinghouse, utilizing a navigational matrix, houses BE-A-BRIDGE resources and training tools for information retrieval and dissemination. As a result, community based organizations are connected with tools to build effective and appropriate programs and interventions.

Learning Objectives:
1. To recognize the importance of capacity building in the adoption of evidence based interventions and best practices 2. To discuss the interrelated issues among targeted populations 3. To learn the importance of collaboration in addressing public health issues

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No
Any institutionally-contracted trials related to this submission?

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.