On December 13, 2010, six staff members from PHF attended the Community Guide Training Meeting in Arlington, Virginia. This meeting was designed to build a workforce expertise and proficiency around the use of evidence-based public health and to increase the integration of The Community Guide Task Force recommendations in the work of the participating organizations.

 

The meeting focused on specific areas in the Guide including the rationale and necessity for evidence-based public health, the intended purposes of The Community Guide and how the evidence base is built, content-specific Community Guide materials in relation to CDC’s winnable battles, ways health departments can use The Community Guide to inform practice and policy development, and ways The Community Guide and evidence-based decision making can inform and has informed local and state policy development. In addition, there was a panel discussion titled, “Informing and Creating State and Local Policy,” led by Kim Barnhill, Chris Finley, and Jim Pearsol.