Peer-reviewed journal articles accepted
Abstract:
Ever increasing demands for accountability,
together with the proliferation of lists of
evidence-based prevention programs and
policies, led the Society for Prevention
Research to charge a committee to establish
standards for identifying effective
prevention programs and policies.
Recognizing that interventions that are
effective and ready for dissemination are a
subset of effective programs and policies,
and that effective programs and policies are
a subset of efficacious interventions, SPR's
Standards Committee developed overlapping
sets of standards. We designed these
Standards to assist practitioners, policy
makers, and administrators determine which
interventions are efficacious, which are
effective, and which are ready for
dissemination.
Under these Standards, an
efficacious intervention will have been
tested in at least two rigorous trials that:
1) involved defined samples from defined
populations, 2) used psychometrically sound
measures and data collection procedures; 3)
analyzed their data with rigorous
statistical approaches; 4) showed consistent
positive effects (without serious iatrogenic
effects); and 5) reported at least one
significant long-term follow-up.
An effective intervention under
these Standards will not only meet all
standards for efficacious interventions, but
also will have: 1) manuals, appropriate
training, and technical support available to
allow third parties to adopt and implement
the intervention; 2) been evaluated under
real-world conditions in studies that
included sound measurement of the level of
implementation and engagement of the target
audience (in both the intervention and
control conditions); 3) indicated the
practical importance of intervention outcome
effects; and 4) clearly demonstrated to whom
intervention findings can be generalized.
An intervention recognized as ready
for broad dissemination under these
Standards will not only meet all standards
for efficacious and effective interventions,
but also will provide: 1) evidence of the
ability to “go to scale;” 2) clear cost
information; and 3) monitoring and
evaluation tools so adopting agencies can
monitor or evaluate how well the
intervention works in their settings.
Finally, the Standards Committee
identified possible standards desirable for
current and future areas of prevention
science as the field develops. If
successful, these Standards will inform
efforts in the field to find prevention
programs and policies that are of proven
efficacy, effectiveness, or readiness for
adoption and will guide prevention
scientists as they seek to discover,
research, and bring to the field new
prevention programs and policies.