Programs or Services

Program Planning

The Community Guide can be used in the program planning process. Once planners identify their community health issues and draft measurable program objectives, the Community Guide can be used to select evidence-based interventions to help achieve those objectives.

For ideas on how to use the Community Guide in program planning, see our Program Planning Resource.

Preventive Health Care Services

Medical, dental, nursing, mental health and other health care providers may find the Community Guide is a valuable complement to the Clinical Guide to Preventive Services that can assist them in:

• Adopting evidence-based strategies to improve the health of individuals and populations
• Promoting partnerships between practitioners and government, community, business, and voluntary organizations to plan and implement effective strategies in multiple health topics
• Combining information on what has worked with knowledge of a local community and healthcare system to design interventions that are tailored to local needs and realities

Examples

Here are a few examples of Community Guide recommendations you can use to improve health and prevent disease in your practice or community.

Tobacco use prevention and reduction:

• Reducing patient costs for treatments to quit smoking
• Telephone quit lines
• Provider reminder systems
• Provider reminder systems with provider education

Increasing vaccination coverage:

• Standing orders for delivery of vaccines to adults
• Provider reminder and recalls
• Assessment and feedback for providers

Reducing cancer morbidity and mortality:

• Client reminders to increase screening for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer

Reducing tooth decay in children and adolescents:

• Partnering with schools to make dental sealants available to children
• Community water fluoridation

Employee Health and Wellness

Purchasing Health Care Services

Purchasers of healthcare services must make difficult trade-offs and funding decisions, often working with limited budgets for health care in general, and prevention in particular. Many employers face information gaps that make investing in prevention difficult. Valid effectiveness data is often not readily available to employers, and economic data can be scarce.

The Community Guide helps address these gaps. It can be used as a resource to construct and select health benefit plans for clinical and preventive services, because it:

• Provides information on a spectrum of prevention services that work for groups of people, as well as cost effectiveness data where available
• Covers many evidence-based findings that speak to employers' health concerns and cost drivers such as:
  • Tobacco use (e.g., smoking cessation services)
  • Vaccine-preventable disease (e.g., flu)
  • Diabetes (e.g., case management)
• Informs the full scope of clinical and preventive health purchasing decisions when used alongside A Purchaser’s Guide to Clinical Preventive Services: Moving Science into Coverage

Worksite Health Promotion

The Community Guide is also a valuable resource when designing and implementing certain employee wellness policies and interventions, such as:

• Tobacco policy
• Physical activity (e.g. signage to promote use of stairs)
• Health risk appraisal

Supporting Local Community Health

Employees' health and productivity are affected by the communities in which they live. Employers can promote the health of employees and their families by partnering with city councils, school boards, and other local and state organizations to promote successful community health campaigns and programs. The Community Guide includes many recommendations for effective community health interventions, such as:

• Community water fluoridation
• School vaccination programs
• School-based physical education