Prevention Info - The Resource For Disease and Injury Prevention

About Us \| FAQs \| Contact Us How can this site help you?

Navigate this page:
Clinical Strategies
Population Strategies

Clinical Strategies

Guide to Clinical Preventive Services or the "Clinical Guide" is the gold standard among clinician guides on preventive patient care. It addresses disease and risk factor screening and counseling about health behaviors. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, convened by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, develops the Guide's recommendations based on scientific evidence of effectiveness.

Clinical Guide Recommendations for Counseling to Promote Physical Activity

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends neither for or against counseling adults or children in primary care settings to promote physical activity.

(The Task Force found insufficient evidence to determine whether such counseling leads to sustained increases in physical activity or not.)

The Task Force notes that multi-component interventions
-provider advice plus behavioral interventions-
are the most promising to facilitate and reinforce healthy levels of physical activity.

Such interventions often include a combination of:

Patient goal-setting
Written exercise prescriptions
Individually tailored physical activity regimens
Mailed or telephone follow-up assistance provided by specially trained staff.
Linking patients to community-based physical activity and fitness programs.

[Top]

Population Strategies

Guide to Community Preventive Services or "Community Guide" details effective community-based strategies to promote and safeguard health. These might include media campaigns, educational programs, policy changes, or regulatory action. It is being developed by an independent task force convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

These tables summarize the Community Guide's recommendations on increasing physical activity. The Community Guide Web site explains each recommendation in detail.

Informational Approaches to Increase Physical Activity
Community-wide Campaigns	Strong Evidence of Effectiveness
"Point-of-Decision" Prompts To Encourage Stair Use	Sufficient Evidence of Effectiveness

Behavioral and Social Approaches to Increase Physical Activity
School-based Physical Education	Strong Evidence of Effectiveness
Social Support Interventions inCommunity Settings	Strong Evidence of Effectiveness
Individually-adapted Health Behavior Change Programs	Strong Evidence of Effectiveness

Environmental and Policy Approaches to Increase Physical Activity
Enhancing Access to Places for Physical Activity + Informational Outreach Activities	Strong Evidence of Effectiveness

[Top]

All of our Population Strategies documents are in pdf form. You may download Adobe Reader here: