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Standards of Evidence

The Society for Prevention Research is committed to the advancement of science-based prevention programs and policies through empirical research. Increasingly, decision-makers and prevention service providers seek tested and efficacious or effective programs and policies for possible implementation.

SPR Standards of Evidence

Standards of Evidence for Efficacy, Effectiveness, and Scale-up Research in Prevention Science: Next Generation, April 2015

In 2013, the Society for Prevention Research (SPR) Board of Directors convened a task force to update and extend the “SPR Standards of Evidence: Criteria for Efficacy, Effectiveness, and Dissemination” published in 2005. The “Standards of Evidence for Efficacy, Effectiveness, and Scale-up Research in Prevention Science: Next Generation” published online: 07 April 2015 in Prevention Science (click here) represents the work of this task force. The revised and updated standards include special attention to standards for replication studies and scaling up of effective interventions. New standards have been added for testing theory, describing interventions, measuring the quality of implementation, documenting adaptations in the field, reporting study results, and evaluating outcomes of scale-up efforts. Guidance is also provided on determining effectiveness in face of multiple outcomes/multiple studies. The article was published in Prevention Science, April 2015, with commentaries from several prevention scientists.

The SPR Board of Directors endorses the “next generation” standards produced through this effort and anticipates that these revised standards will help to encourage research that will strengthen the impact of prevention science to improve the public health and well-being. We encourage you to disseminate it broadly.

Standards of Evidence: Criteria for Efficacy, Effectiveness and Dissemination (2005)

Here is the link to article https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11121-005-5553-y

As part of SPR’s strategic plan, in 2003, the SPR Board of Directors appointed a committee of prevention scientists, chaired by Brian Flay, to determine the requisite criteria that must be met for preventive interventions to be judged tested and efficacious or tested and effective. The Standards of Evidence developed by this committee were unanimously adopted by the Board of Directors of SPR on April 12, 2004, as the standards which SPR asserts should be met if a program or policy is to be called tested and efficacious or tested and effective. The “Standards of SPR Standards of Evidence: Criteria for Efficacy, Effectiveness, and Dissemination” was published in Prevention Science, September 2005.