Expert guidance finding and using the best available evidence in public health

Evidence-based public health has emerged as a set of approaches to generating and translating evidence of particular relevance to the types of complex issues faced by public health practitioners and policy makers. Recognizing the variation in the amount and quality of evidence available to support public health practice and policy for different types of interventions and across domains, the Secretary's Advisory Committee for National Health Promotion and Disease Prevention issued guidance on criteria that could be used to select “evidence-based” or “knowledge-based” actions for inclusion in Healthy People 2020 (1). At around the same time, a consensus study conducted by the Institute of Medicine considered the evidence needs and gaps related to population-level interventions on obesity and developed the L.E.A.D Framework (L.E.A.D is short for Locating, Evaluation, and Assembling Evidence to inform Decisions). This presentation will highlight key insights from these two complementary reports and consider their practical applications.