Preventive medicine
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Preventive medicine · Oct 2014
Quality criteria for health checks: development of a European consensus agreement.
Health checks may empower individuals to take better care of their health, but they may incorporate risks of incorrect test results, overdiagnosis and overtreatment as well. Some health checks are strictly regulated, such as in many of the national screening programs, but the ones offered outside such programs and in the commercial domain, are not. We developed a European consensus agreement for quality criteria. ⋯ The consensus agreement on the quality of health checks aim to enhance informed decision making in clients and protects the affordability of the health care system. The criteria can be developed further into a formal standard and regulation if such authority is warranted.
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Preventive medicine · Oct 2014
EditorialCommunities putting prevention to work: local evaluation of community-based strategies designed to make healthy living easier.
This introduction is an overview of the articles presented in this supplement that describe implementation and evaluation activities conducted as part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) initiative. CPPW was one of the largest federal investments ever to combat chronic diseases in the United States. ⋯ The articles included in this supplement describe implementation and evaluation efforts of strategies implemented as part of CPPW by local awardees. This supplement is intended to guide the evidence base for public health interventions on the basis of jurisdiction-wide policy and environmental-level improvements and to encourage rigorous evaluation of the public health interventions.