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Summary
Over the past century the major causes of morbidity and mortality in
the United States have shifted from those related to communicable diseases
to those due to chronic diseases. Just as the major causes of morbidity
and mortality have changed, so too has understanding of health and what
makes people healthy or ill. Research has documented the importance of
the social determinants of health (for example, socioeconomic status and
education), which affect health directly as well as through their impact on
other health determinants such as risk factors. Targeting interventions to-
ward the conditions associated with today’s challenges to living a healthy
life requires an increased emphasis on the factors that affect the current
causes of morbidity and mortality, factors such as the social determinants
of health. Many community-based prevention interventions target such
conditions.
Community-based prevention interventions offer three distinct
strengths. First, because the intervention is implemented population-wide it
is inclusive and not dependent on access to the health care system. Second,
by directing strategies at an entire population an intervention can reach
individuals at all levels of risk. And finally, some lifestyle and behavioral
risk factors are shaped by conditions not under an individual’s control.
For example, encouraging an individual to eat healthy food when none
is accessible undermines the potential for successful behavioral change.
Community-based prevention interventions can be designed to affect envi-
ronmental and social conditions that are out of the reach of clinical services.
When a person is ill, making a case for policies and programs to
avoid further deterioration of health or death seems reasonable. However,
1
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2 ASSESSING THE VALUE OF COMMUNITY-BASED PREVENTION
prevention requires that before someone becomes sick, society invest the
financial and other resources necessary to make the required changes in
individual and community life associated with preventing illness. Some of
the persons who receive the intervention would never become sick, yet they
share the costs of the intervention. These certain costs of improving health
often outweigh the perceived benefits of community-based prevention, es-
pecially if individuals perceive their own risk of illness as low.
Four foundations—the California Endowment, the de Beaumont
Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg
F
oundation—asked the Institute of Medicine to convene an expert commit-
tee to develop a framework for assessing the value of community-based,
non-clinical prevention policies and wellness strategies, especially those
targeting the prevention of long-term, chronic diseases. The charge to the
committee was further defined as follows:
• Define “community-based, non-clinical prevention policy and well-
ness strategies.”
• Define “value” for community-based, non-clinical prevention pol-
icy and wellness strategies.
• Analyze current frameworks used to assess the value of community-
based, non-clinical prevention policies and wellness strategies,
including
o the methodologies and measures used and
o the short- and long-term impacts of such prevention policy
and wellness strategies on communities, including health care
spending and public health.
• If warranted, propose a new framework or frameworks that cap-
ture the breadth and complexity of community-based, non-clinical
prevention policies and wellness strategies, including interventions
that target specific behaviors and health outcomes.
The framework should
• consider the sources of data that are needed and available;
• consider the concepts of generalization, scaling up, and sustain-
ability of programs; and
• address national and state policy implications associated with im-
plementing the framework.
DEFINITIONS
One of the first tasks facing the committee was defining the terms re-
lated to its charge. The phrase “community-based, non-clinical prevention
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SUMMARY 3
policy and wellness strategies” appears in the Statement of Task. This
phrase has been shortened for purposes of this report to community-based
prevention. The committee concluded that community-based prevention in-
terventions are population-based interventions that are aimed at preventing
the onset of disease, stopping or slowing the progress of disease, reducing
or eliminating the negative consequences of disease, increasing healthful
behaviors that result in improvements in health and well-being, or decreas-
ing disparities that result in an inequitable distribution of health. The com-
mittee also concluded that, in addition to a focus on population health,
community-based prevention interventions also may address changes in
the social and physical environment, involve intersectoral action, highlight
community participation and empowerment, emphasize context, or include
a systems approach.
The committee uses the term community to mean any group of people
who share geographic space, interests, goals, or history. A further discussion
of community can be found in Chapter 2.
The value of an intervention, for purposes of this report, is defined as
its benefits minus its harms and costs. There are expanded discussions of
the concept of value at the end of Chapter 1 and in Chapter 4.
The committee concluded that a framework for assessing value is a
structure for gathering and processing information to aid intelligent deci-
sion making and, more specifically, to help decide whether an activity or
intervention is worthwhile. A framework for assessing value can aid deci-
sion making by
• requiring that goals be stated clearly;
• integrating incomplete and sometimes conflicting information and
beliefs;
• avoiding decision making based on arbitrary impressions or
self-interest;
• clarifying trade-offs;
• promoting transparency; and
• identifying and helping to work through legitimate sources of
disagreement.
DOMAINS OF VALUE
The committee was asked to develop a framework for assessing
the value of community-based prevention. Clearly, a major outcome of
c
ommunity-based prevention is its impact on health. However, because
of the way in which community-based prevention is designed and developed
(e.g., often to address the social and environmental determinants of health),
the impacts of these interventions can go beyond health effects. Therefore,
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4 ASSESSING THE VALUE OF COMMUNITY-BASED PREVENTION
a framework for valuing community-based prevention needs to take into
account not only the outcomes in the domain of health, but also outcomes
in areas other than health. A framework that does not take into account
and value non-health outcomes would be counting all the costs but not
all the benefits, thereby providing an inaccurate and inadequate picture of
the value of community-based prevention. Decision makers, funders, and
stakeholders will all benefit from an approach that looks not just at health
impacts, but at other impacts as well, and thus assesses the true value of
community-based prevention.
The committee concluded that the outcomes of community-based pre-
vention interventions can be divided into three distinct but interrelated
categories, or domains of value: health, community well-being, and com-
munity process. The committee is aware that health is a component of
well-being but for the purposes of this report the health component is
separated from other elements of community well-being because health is a
particular outcome of interest. By valuing these domains one can account
for all of the potential harms and benefits of community-based prevention
interventions as well as the possible savings and costs associated with the
interventions. Chapter 3 provides an in-depth exploration of each of these
domains of value; a brief summary is provided below. Many elements in
each of the domains can be valued, and the ones selected will depend on
the intervention of interest and on its implementation. The committee has
identified one element—equity—that crosses all three domains.
The domain of health (both physical and mental) includes changes in
the incidence and prevalence of disease, declines in mortality, and increases
in health-related quality of life. More specifically, measures of physical
health include mortality, morbidity, and functional capability. Measures
of mental health include cognition, individual resilience or emotional re-
serves, mortality from such causes as suicide, morbidity (e.g., depression),
and socio-emotional health-related quality of life (e.g., stress, behaviors,
injuries, and perceptions of health).
Community well-being includes social norms, how people relate to
each other and to their surroundings, and how much investment they are
willing to make in themselves and in the people around them. Elements of
community well-being include wealth and income, education, employment,
crime, transportation, housing, worksites, food, social support and social
networks, and health care, among others. These elements are produced,
reproduced, and transformed by the practice of individuals in the commu-
nity. Community well-being includes the physical as well as the social and
economic environments that affect the health of individuals and popula-
tions, directly and indirectly.
The domain of community process includes local leadership devel-
opment, skill building, civic engagement or participation, community
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SUMMARY 5
representation, and community history, among others. Community pro-
cesses typically have a sequence of activities that incorporate learning about
various options available for health improvement, deliberations associated
with the selection of one or more options, consideration of the appropri-
ate methods to implement the health improvement initiatives, and critical
reflection on the entire process. Not only can the way that decisions are
made and carried out be important to the success of a program or policy—
and thus to community well-being—it can also have a direct impact on
well-being through benefits of broad participation and buy-in to decisions.
FRAMEWORK FOR VALUING
The committee concluded that a framework for valuing community-based
prevention programs and policies should meet at least three criteria. First,
the framework should account for benefits and harms in the three domains of
health, community well-being, and community process. Community-based
prevention can create value not only through improvements in the health of
individuals but also by increasing the investment that individuals are willing
and able to make in themselves, in their family and neighbors, and in their
environment. Furthermore, community-based prevention involves decisions
among groups of people about how to live in society, how the physical
environment is built, what food is served in schools, and so on. Thus, the
process by which interventions are decided upon and undertaken needs to
be treated as a valued outcome. If a community decides to tell people what
they can or cannot do, or what they should or should not do, the decisions
need to have the legitimacy—the added value—that comes from an open
and inclusive group decision-making process.
Second, the framework should consider the resources used and com-
pare benefits and harms with those resources. To make that comparison and
to compare different interventions with each other, it is essential to know
not just that some benefit is likely but also the magnitude of the benefits
and of the associated costs for each intervention.
Finally, the framework needs to be sensitive to differences among
communities and to take them into account in valuing community-based
prevention. In part, this reflects the reality that, because communities vary
so much in their characteristics, the causal links between interventions and
valued outcomes may be different for different communities.
None of the frameworks analyzed by the committee meets the criteria
described above. (For a detailed discussion of the analysis, see Chapter 4.)
Therefore, the committee concluded that a new framework was needed to
assess the value of community-based prevention interventions.
The goals of the framework (Figure S-1) proposed by the committee are
(1) to incorporate the full scope of benefits into the value of interventions,
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6 ASSESSING THE VALUE OF COMMUNITY-BASED PREVENTION
Valuing—What Should Be Counted?
Benefits Quality-Adjusted Life Years
Health (QALYs) or Health-Adjusted
B enefits and Harms
Harms Life Expectancy (HALE)
Benefits
Community Community Well-Being Community Benefit
Well-Being Indicator
Harms
Benefits
Community Community Process
Process Indicator Value
Harms
The Value of an
Intervention Considers
Its Benefits, Harms,
and Costs
R es ourc es Us ed
Valuing—What Should Be Counted?
Identification
of
Savings Community Costs
Investments
Monetary Units (USD)
and
Costs
Resources
FIGURE S-1 Conceptual framework for valuing community-based prevention
interventions.
so that in addition to health benefits and harms, the benefits and harms
from community well-being and community process are included; (2) to
emphasize that value requires a comparison of the benefits and harms of
an intervention in relation to the resources used for the intervention; (3) to
a
llow the specific characteristics and context of individual communities
to be reflected in the valuation of community-based prevention; (4) to
promote the quantification of value in terms of projected or actual changes
due to the intervention; and (5) to encourage the development of evidence
in order to make understanding the effects of interventions easier and more
reliable. The valuation of community-based prevention interventions should
be done with a comprehensive perspective; that is, the measurement of ben-
efits, harms, and resources should include impacts on all members of the
community as well as on stakeholders who may be outside the community.
As illustrated in the framework, the measurement of benefits and harms
should occur in the domains of health, community well-being, and commu-
nity process. Resources used are a fourth major category to be considered in
valuing community-based prevention. A further discussion of costs appears
in Chapter 3 and in Box 5-1.
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SUMMARY 7
Recommendation 1: The committee recommends that those seeking to
assign value to community-based prevention interventions take a com-
prehensive view that includes the benefits and harms in the three major
domains of health, community well-being, and community process as
well as the resource use associated with such interventions.
There are a variety of sources of data on health, including surveys
(e.g., the National Health Interview Survey and the Behavioral Risk Factor
Surveillance System), cohort studies (e.g., the Framingham Heart Study),
registries, health services data, and vital statistics. Unfortunately, there are
several limitations when attempting to use these data for local, community-
based measurement. Identifying measures and sources of information for
community well-being and community process elements is even more chal-
lenging than identifying these items for health. Such efforts will require
an increased focus on identifying appropriate information gaps and data
sources.
Recommendation 2: The committee recommends that the CDC
a. develop an inventory of existing data sources for health, commu-
nity well-being, and community process;
b. identify gaps in data sources; and
c. develop data sources to fill those gaps.
Choosing among community-based prevention policies and programs
can be difficult when programs have so many effects and those effects take
so many different forms (see Chapter 3 for further discussion). The larger
the menu of interventions and the larger the number of valued outcomes,
the more difficult the choices become.
The committee proposes four indicators to assess the value of commu-
nity-based prevention: changes in health, changes in community well-being,
changes in community process, and changes in resources used. Health out-
comes in the population can be valued with the well developed and widely
used quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) or health-adjusted life expectancy
(HALE). However, metrics for valuing community well-being and com-
munity process are yet to be developed. The committee is aware that the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has initiated efforts in
these areas. Measures of community well-being (e.g., the Urban Hardship
Index, Community Well-Being Indices, and county health rankings) have
been developed and could serve as a starting point, but they have significant
limitations in scope.
The committee views the development of a single indicator of commu-
nity benefit comparable to QALYs or HALE for health as a long-term goal.
The committee recognizes that developing this single indicator is a complex
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8 ASSESSING THE VALUE OF COMMUNITY-BASED PREVENTION
task that will require expertise from many different fields. The National
Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council (Prevention
Council), an interagency group established by the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act and chaired by the Surgeon General, recognizes that
the health of a community is influenced by a number of factors outside of
the health care and public health sectors, including education, housing, and
transportation. Such a group is well positioned to encourage the research
needed by the many different sectors that need to be involved in developing
a community benefit indicator.
Recommendation 3: The committee recommends that the National
Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council and other
public and private sponsors support research aimed at developing
a. a single metric for appraising a community’s well-being,
b. a single metric for appraising community processes, and
c. a single metric for combining indicators of community well-being
and community process with health into a single indicator of com-
munity benefit that can be considered in the context of costs and
used to determine the value of a community-based prevention
intervention.
Given that the outcomes in the four domains are—or will be, once they
are developed—measured in different units, a single indicator of the value
of community-based prevention is currently not possible. However, in the
framework depicted in Figure S-1, if the indicator of community benefit is
considered alongside the community cost indicator (which is suggested to
be expressed in dollars or other currency), then value may be expressed as
units of community benefit per dollar. The proposed indicators are a first
step toward a possible future overall summary measure.
The value of a community-based prevention intervention reflects its
impact in relation to what would have happened in its absence or in relation
to an alternative community-based prevention intervention. It is therefore
important to assess the actual changes that are projected to occur as a result
of an intervention.
Recommendation 4: The committee recommends that those assessing
value should include in their assessments the expected or demonstrated
changes, both positive and negative, that result from the intervention.
Understanding what the community cares about is critical for design-
ing and proposing interventions that address areas of importance to the
community. Such an assessment will not only identify important health
(and non-health) factors in the community but also those factors where
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SUMMARY 9
improvement is preferred by community members. What is important for
one community may not be important for another.
Recommendation 5: The committee recommends that those involved
in decision making ensure that the elements included in valuing
c
ommunity-based prevention interventions reflect the preferences of
an inclusive range of stakeholders.
One dimension of the health outcomes that affects value is the possible
conflict between equity and improving aggregate health for a population.
Sometimes these two goals of health policy pull in the same direction, and
sometimes they conflict. A community-based prevention intervention may
be good at improving aggregate health, but it may have a bigger effect on
those already better off in some important way, e.g., by income, residential
location, or occupational status, and this may increase health disparities.
The degree to which people are willing to trade off increased inequality for
aggregate improvement may vary significantly. Reasonable disagreement
about how to weigh these two values may persist, and the framework can
make the source of that disagreement more visible.
The persistence of such disagreement around values suggests there
may be a legitimacy problem for decision makers; even if they are the ap-
propriate authorities for making such decisions, they must make them in
the “right” way if legitimacy is to be obtained. Their process should search
for rationales that take the relevant values into consideration, and the
rationales must explain the basis for giving them the weight that the deci-
sion reflects. The framework emphasizes the importance of transparency,
and one reason is that transparency improves the deliberative process. A
transparent search for the value of an intervention is one key aspect of a
process that arguably enhances legitimacy.
Recommendation 6: The committee recommends that, to assure
transparency,
a. analysts make publicly available the evidence used for valuation
and provide estimates of the uncertainty of their results, and
b. decision makers make publicly available the rationale for their
decisions.
IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY
As with the frameworks discussed in Chapter 4, the committee’s frame-
work has limitations. The framework presented in this report is in its very
early stages, and so its near-term impact on policy making is likely to be
limited. Because of the importance of contextual factors and the limited
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10 ASSESSING THE VALUE OF COMMUNITY-BASED PREVENTION
scope and generalizability of evidence on the effects of community-based
prevention, the framework does not yet provide a detailed roadmap for
valuation. The comprehensive data necessary to measure tangible benefits
adequately are often not available, and the measurement of the many
intangible benefits is not yet well developed. Such a broadly inclusive
framework may seem overly abstract or unreliable to some observers. As
the framework is applied, new measures and data sources will need to be
developed, as will an appropriate methodology for creating valid single
indicators for community well-being and community process. Old measures
and data sources will need to be applied in new ways, a process that will
take time to establish validity and gain acceptance. The committee has
recommended several steps that can be taken to promote progress on these
fronts. Although much work remains, the committee’s proposed framework
is designed to capture the value of community-based prevention by taking
a comprehensive approach, comparing benefits, harms, and resources used
in three domains, and taking into account community context.
Additional efforts will be required to build consensus that the outcomes
on which the framework focuses (health, community well-being, commu-
nity process, and resources used) are broadly important, and not just the
narrow interest of a specific group. It will also be important to validate the
framework by showing repeatedly that it correctly distinguishes between
interventions that improve community well-being and those that do not.
This process of validation will almost certainly entail refinement of the
framework as well as an expansion of the underlying base of evidence.
Formal incorporation of the framework into the policy-making process
could consist of a requirement that legislative or grant proposals be accom-
panied by an objective impact assessment based on the framework or a re-
quirement that executive-branch agencies use the framework in evaluating
the output of their programs. Another way to give the framework a formal
role would be to require that discretionary funding be distributed accord-
ing to valuations that use the framework. Although that type of role may
be many years off, the existing frameworks described in Chapter 4 provide
clear precedents for such a progression.
The chapters of the report expand on the issues and findings discussed
in this summary. Chapter 1 reviews the committee charge and definitions,
explores why community-based prevention is important, examines how
community-based prevention differs from clinical prevention efforts, and
discusses issues associated with attempting to assign value. Chapter 2 ex-
pands on the discussion of community, provides a brief historical perspective
of community interventions, discusses four approaches to community-based
prevention, reviews models for implementation that represent the current
state of the field, identifies important features of community-based preven-
tion, and examines issues associated with evaluating the effectiveness of
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SUMMARY 11
such programs. In Chapter 3, the committee examines how methods from
systems science can be applied to community-based prevention, discusses
how such methods can be used to clarify and quantify the relationships
among variables, identifies domains of value for community-based preven-
tion, and discusses costs to consider in valuing. Chapter 4 provides a list
of elements that a framework for assessing value should possess, examines
how a framework for valuing resides within a decision-making context,
reviews eight frameworks currently used to assess community-based pre-
vention, and discusses the strengths and limitations of each for addressing
the special characteristics of community-based prevention. In Chapter 5,
the committee lays out its vision for the future of valuing community-based
prevention.
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