Advancing Evidence-Based Public Health Policy: How Core Component Thinking Can Illuminate the Multilevel Nature of Public Health Policy.

A growing body of literature uses the concept of core components to better understand small-scale programmatic interventions. Instead of interventions being viewed as unitary "black boxes," interventions are viewed as configurations of core components, which are the parts of interventions that carry their causal potential and therefore need to be reproduced with fidelity to produce the intended effect. To date, the concept of core components has not been as widely applied to public health policy interventions as it has to programmatic interventions. The purpose of this topical review is to familiarize public health practitioners and policy makers with the concept of core components as applied to public health policy interventions. Raising the profile of core component thinking can foster mindful adaptation and implementation of public health policy interventions while encouraging further research to enhance the supporting evidence base. We present 3 types of multilevel interactions in which the core components of a public health policy intervention produce effects at the population level by (1) seeking to directly affect individual behavior, (2) facilitating adoption of programmatic interventions by intermediaries, and (3) encouraging intermediaries to take action that can shape changes in upstream drivers of population health. Changing the unit of analysis from whole policies to core components can provide a basis for understanding how policies work and for facilitating novel evidence-generating strategies and rapid evidence reviews that can inform future adaptation efforts.

Distilling the Fundamentals of Evidence-Based Public Health Policy.

Public health policy interventions are associated with many important public health achievements. To provide public health practitioners and decision makers with practical approaches for examining and employing evidence-based public health (EBPH) policy interventions, we describe the characteristics and benefits that distinguish EBPH policy interventions from programmatic interventions. These characteristics include focusing on health at a population level, focusing on upstream drivers of health, and involving less individual action than programmatic interventions. The benefits of EBPH policy interventions include more sustained effects on health than many programs and an enhanced ability to address health inequities. Early childhood education and universal preschool provide a case example that illustrates the distinction between EBPH policy and programmatic interventions. This review serves as the foundation for 3 concepts that support the effective use of public health policy interventions: applying core component thinking to understand the population health effects of EBPH policy interventions; understanding the influence of existing policies, policy supports, and the context in which a particular policy is implemented on the effectiveness of that policy; and employing a systems thinking approach to identify leverage points where policy implementation can have a meaningful effect.

Strengthening the "Reach-Test-Treat-Retain" cascade for men who have sex with men in Guatemala: A pilot intervention. EIR-HIV KPIS

In a qualitative study with both MSM and TW living with HIV in Guatemala City, Barrington et al (2016) again found that intersecting stigma and discrimination created fear of HIV testing and linkage to HIV care and barriers to knowledge about HIV. Retention-specific determinants included HIV clinic dynamics and limited employment opportunities, which affected economic stability. These multiple levels of factors driving linkage and retention in care and treatment require multi-level, integrated responses (AU)