Standards Required for the Development of CDC Evidence-Based Guidelines.

CDC is the nation's premier health promotion, prevention, and preparedness agency. As such, CDC is an important source of public health and clinical guidelines. If CDC guidelines are to be trusted by partners and the public, they must be clear, valid, and reliable.

Community Guide Cardiovascular Disease Economic Reviews: Tailoring Methods to Ensure Utility of Findings.

The Community Preventive Services Task Force recommended five interventions for cardiovascular disease prevention between 2012 and 2015. Systematic economic reviews of these interventions faced challenges that made it difficult to generate meaningful policy and programmatic conclusions. This paper describes the methods used to assess, synthesize, and evaluate the economic evidence to generate reliable and useful economic conclusions and address the comparability of economic findings across interventions.

Practice-Based Evidence in Community Guide Systematic Reviews.

Objectives: To assess the relative contributions and quality of practice-based evidence (PBE) and research-based evidence (RBE) in The Guide to Community Preventive Services (The Community Guide).

Methods: We developed operational definitions for PBE and RBE in which the main distinguishing feature was whether allocation of participants to intervention and comparison conditions was under the control of researchers (RBE) or not (PBE). We conceptualized a continuum between RBE and PBE.

Alcohol Electronic Screening and Brief Intervention: A Community Guide Systematic Review.

Context: Excessive drinking is responsible for one in ten deaths among working-age adults in the U.S. annually.

Aligning the Work of Two U.S. Task Forces on Behavioral Counseling Recommendations.

This paper highlights the collaboration and alignment between topics and recommendations related to behavioral counseling interventions from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) and Community Preventive Services Task Force (CPSTF).

Mass media health communication campaigns combined with health-related product distribution: a community guide systematic review.

Context: Health communication campaigns including mass media and health-related product distribution have been used to reduce mortality and morbidity through behavior change. The intervention is defined as having two core components reflecting two social marketing principles: (1) promoting behavior change through multiple communication channels, one being mass media, and (2) distributing a free or reduced-price product that facilitates adoption and maintenance of healthy behavior change, sustains cessation of harmful behaviors, or protects against behavior-related disease or injury.

Evidence Acquisition: Using methods previously developed for the Community Guide, a systematic review (search period, January 1980-December 2009) was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of health communication campaigns that use multiple channels, including mass media, and distribute health-related products.

Economics of mass media health campaigns with health-related product distribution: a community guide systematic review.

Context: The objective of this systematic review was to determine the costs, benefits, and overall economic value of communication campaigns that included mass media and distribution of specified health-related products at reduced price or free of charge.

Evidence Acquisition: Economic evaluation studies from a literature search from January 1980 to December 2009 were screened and abstracted following systematic economic review methods developed by The Community Guide. Data were analyzed in 2011.

Publicized sobriety checkpoint programs: a community guide systematic review.

Context: Publicized sobriety checkpoint programs deter alcohol-impaired driving by stopping drivers systematically to assess their alcohol impairment. Sobriety checkpoints were recommended in 2001 by the Community Preventive Services Task Force for reducing alcohol-impaired driving, based on strong evidence of effectiveness. Since the 2001 review, attention to alcohol-impaired driving as a U.

Scientific evidence and policy change: lowering the legal blood alcohol limit for drivers to 0.08% in the USA.

The United States (US) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and key partners conducted a systematic review of the effectiveness of 0.08% blood alcohol concentration (BAC) laws on alcohol-related traffic mortality. Review findings of strong evidence of effectiveness were presented by partners during US Congressional hearings contributing to the passage of a bill requiring states to lower the legal BAC limit to 0.

Effectiveness of ignition interlocks for preventing alcohol-impaired driving and alcohol-related crashes: a Community Guide systematic review.

A systematic review of the literature to assess the effectiveness of ignition interlocks for reducing alcohol-impaired driving and alcohol-related crashes was conducted for the Guide to Community Preventive Services (Community Guide). Because one of the primary research issues of interest--the degree to which the installation of interlocks in offenders' vehicles reduces alcohol-impaired driving in comparison to alternative sanctions (primarily license suspension)--was addressed by a 2004 systematic review conducted for the Cochrane Collaboration, the current review incorporates that previous work and extends it to include more recent literature and crash outcomes. The body of evidence evaluated includes the 11 studies from the prior review, plus four more recent studies published through December 2007.

Translating evidence into policy: lessons learned from the case of lowering the legal blood alcohol limit for drivers.

This case study examines the translation of evidence on the effectiveness of laws to reduce the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of drivers into policy. It was reconstructed through discussions among individuals involved in the processes as well as a review of documentation and feedback on oral presentations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collaborated extensively with federal and non-federal partners and stakeholders in conducting a rigorous systematic review, using the processes of the Guide to Community Preventive Services to evaluate the body of empirical evidence on 0.

The effectiveness of tax policy interventions for reducing excessive alcohol consumption and related harms.

A systematic review of the literature to assess the effectiveness of alcohol tax policy interventions for reducing excessive alcohol consumption and related harms was conducted for the Guide to Community Preventive Services (Community Guide). Seventy-two papers or technical reports, which were published prior to July 2005, met specified quality criteria, and included evaluation outcomes relevant to public health (e.g.

Effectiveness of multicomponent programs with community mobilization for reducing alcohol-impaired driving.

A systematic review was conducted to determine the effectiveness and economic efficiency of multicomponent programs with community mobilization for reducing alcohol-impaired driving. The review was conducted for the Guide to Community Preventive Services (Community Guide). Six studies of programs qualified for the review.

Patterns of alcohol consumption and alcohol-impaired driving in the United States.

Background: Alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes kill approximately 17,000 Americans annually and were associated with more than $51 billion in total costs in 2000. Relatively little is known about the drinking patterns of alcohol-impaired (AI) drivers in the United States.

Methods: 2006 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) was analyzed for alcohol consumption and self-reported AI driving among U.

Alcohol-related emergency department visits among people ages 13 to 25 years.

Objective: Data from a large, nationally representative sample of hospital emergency departments (EDs) were used to assess the prevalence and characteristics of alcohol-related ED visits among people ages 13 to 25 years in the United States.

Method: Emergency department visits recorded in the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System-All Injury Program were coded for alcohol involvement based on alcohol product codes and abstractions of chart narratives. National estimates and confidence intervals were calculated using SUDAAN statistical software.

Effectiveness of mass media campaigns for reducing drinking and driving and alcohol-involved crashes: a systematic review.

A systematic review of the effectiveness of mass media campaigns for reducing alcohol-impaired driving (AID) and alcohol-related crashes was conducted for the Guide to Community Preventive Services (Community Guide). In eight studies that met quality criteria for inclusion in the review, the median decrease in alcohol-related crashes resulting from the campaigns was 13% (interquartile range: 6% to 14%). Economic analyses of campaign effects indicated that the societal benefits were greater than the costs.

Effectiveness of primary enforcement safety belt laws and enhanced enforcement of safety belt laws: a summary of the Guide to Community Preventive Services systematic reviews.

Background: The use of safety belts is the single most effective means of reducing fatal and nonfatal injuries in motor-vehicle crashes. This paper summarizes the systematic reviews of two interventions to increase safety belt use: primary enforcement safety belt laws and enhanced enforcement of safety belt laws. The reviews were previously published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Primary enforcement seat belt laws are effective even in the face of rising belt use rates.

A recent systematic literature review found that primary enforcement laws are more effective at increasing seat belt use than secondary laws in the United States. This report re-examines the studies included in the systematic review to explore whether the benefits of a primary law differ based on: (1) the baseline seat belt use rate; or (2) whether or not the primary law replaces a secondary law. States that directly enacted primary laws showed larger increases in observed seat belt use (median increase of 33 percentage points).