ABSTRACT
Current national initiatives are now shifting to a strong emphasis on the translation and adoption of evidence-based programs in the community. These types of programs are built on research findings that have been proven to work efficiently to improve the health and quality of life for individuals, groups, or communities. In today’s competitive healthcare environment it is critical for providers to offer simple, cost-effective, and replicable programs that have been proven through credible research. Such programs should reliably generate positive results such as measurable improvement in health outcomes and increased client and provider satisfaction, thus resulting in higher quality services to the intended population. Integrating evidence-based programming into community-based health organizations must preserve the fundamental bridge of fidelity between the intervention researched and the new practice innovation, enabling providers to make more sophisticated decisions when planning, implementing and evaluating programs that have been established in tested models or interventions. Further information about the advantages of replicating evidence-based interventions can be found in the introduction article of this volume.
