Linking Science and Practice: Toward a System for Enabling Communities to Adopt Best Practices for Chronic Disease Prevention

In this article, the development of a system for collecting and assessing best community-based health promotion practices for dissemination is described. The key system components are (a) a protocol for identifying meritorious practices, (b) criteria for assessing those practices, and (c) an assessment procedure. A key informant process was used to identify interventions, and interviews were conducted to acquire detailed information on them. Categories of criteria pertaining to (a) effectiveness, (b) plausibility, and (c) practicality were developed for assessing practices. Application of the criteria led to selected practices’ being designated as “best,” “promising,” or “to be tracked.”