Health Affairs, 25, no. 4 (2006): 968 doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.25.4.968 © 2006 by Project HOPE	New Online   Senate Health Reform Bill   Rewarding Providers   Public Option Policy Brief   Health Reform & Abortion   Delivery System Reform

This Article Full Text (HTML) Reprint (PDF) Submit a response to this article Alert me when this article is cited Alert me when Comments are posted Alert me if a correction is posted Services E-mail this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to My Personal Archive Download to Citation Manager Reprints & Permissions Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Search for Related Content Related Collections Public Health Evidence-Based Medicine

Evidence & Information

PROLOGUE

Evidence And Information In Public Health

Not all public health is local, but most of it is, and the uniqueness of local community characteristics and preferences poses difficult challenges for the development and implementation of evidence-based public health strategies. Like medicine, public health is a discipline rooted in science; the staples of public health—epidemiology, surveillance, and disease prevention—are all data-guided endeavors. But at the margins, public health priorities are often judgment calls that might bring into play the messy ancillaries of risk perception, politics, and public opinion. Under such fickle and subjective influences, refined hierarchies of evidence are needed to define needs and evaluate options.

But . . . [Full Text of this Article]

                      What's this?