Putting theory into practice: a case study of diabetes-related behavioral change interventions on Chicago's South Side.

Diabetes self-management is central to diabetes care overall, and much of self-management entails individual behavior change, particularly around dietary patterns and physical activity. Yet individual-level behavior change remains a challenge for many persons with diabetes, particularly for racial/ethnic minorities who disproportionately face barriers to diabetes-related behavioral changes. Through the South Side Diabetes Project, officially known as "Improving Diabetes Care and Outcomes on the South Side of Chicago," our team sought to improve health outcomes and reduce disparities among residents in the largely working-class African American communities that comprise Chicago's South Side.

Expanding and sustaining integrated health care-community efforts to reduce diabetes disparities.

To reduce racial and ethnic disparities in diabetes care and outcomes, it is critical to integrate health care and community approaches. However, little work describes how to expand and sustain such partnerships and initiatives. We outline our experience creating and growing an initiative to improve diabetes care and outcomes in the predominantly African American South Side of Chicago.

The future of pain research, education, and treatment: a summary of the IOM report "Relieving pain in America: a blueprint for transforming prevention, care, education, and research".

The fifth column on Evidence-Based Behavioral Medicine is focused on the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) report entitled "Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research." The IOM has reported that chronic pain affects 116 million American adults, which is greater than the total of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes combined. It is recommended that data collection takes place at regular intervals using standardized questions, survey protocols, and electronic medical records with the aim of the identifying the following: subpopulations at risk; characteristics of acute and chronic pain; health consequences of pain, including death, disease, and disability; and longitudinal trends of pain.

Quality care process in the VA: a synopsis and comment on "Comparison of the quality of medical care in veterans affairs and non-veterans affairs settings".

The fourth column on Evidence-Based Behavioral Medicine presents a synopsis of the systematic review by Trivedi et al. (2011) comparing the quality of medical care in veterans affairs (VA) and non-VA settings. Thirty-six studies were included in the synthesis.

Translating clinical evidence to the community: a synopsis and comment on "Community wide interventions for increasing physical activity".

The third column on Evidence-Based Behavioral Medicine is focused on the Baker et al. Cochrane Review entitled "Community wide interventions for increasing physical activity." We provide a synopsis of the review as well as a comment on the future direction of community-wide physical activity interventions.

The DECISIONS study: synopsis of evidence for shared decision-making and quality patient-provider communication.

The second column on Evidence-Based Behavioral Medicine (EBBM) has two goals. First, we describe the importance of patient-provider communication and shared decision-making as integral components in EBBM. Second, we provide a synopsis of the DECISIONS study's findings on patient knowledge and prevalence of decision-making in order to illustrate the role that patient involvement in health care decisions plays in quality health care.