Research Centers for Excellence in Clinical Preventive Services

Preventive care isn't working well today. Some preventive services, such as vaccinations and cancer screening, can save lives. But many people, especially the poor and ethnic or racial minorities, aren't getting the services they need. At the same time, other people get services that have no benefit or even cause harm. Getting the right preventive care to the right people is difficult in routine primary care because of time constraints, conflicting priorities, communication problems, and lack of systems to facilitate delivery.

As a national resource, the AHRQ Research Centers for Excellence in Clinical Preventive Services are finding solutions to the problems of underuse, overuse, and disparities in use of preventive services. This infographic summarizes their work (Download printable PDF File, 620 KB).

A bibliography (PDF, 38 KB) lists the publications and other materials developed by the three AHRQ Research Centers for Excellence in Clinical Preventive Services.

Briefs detail achievements of the Centers.

The establishment of these centers was made possible by the Prevention and Public Health Fund, part of the Affordable Care Act.

Health Equity

The Center for Advancing Equity in Clinical Preventive Services | Northwestern University  
This center is developing and testing interventions to reduce disparities in clinical preventive services by focusing on health literacy, health communication, quality improvement methods and health information technology. The three main research projects of this center focus on understanding and addressing high rates of refusal of pneumococcal vaccination among African-Americans*, improving rates of colorectal cancer screening*, and reducing disparities in cardiovascular disease prevention*.

David Baker, MD, MPH—Center Director
Michael Wolf, PhD, MPH—Collaborative Scientific Lead
http://prevention-for-all.org/  

Reducing Patient Harms

Research Center for Excellence in Clinical Preventive Services | University of North Carolina
Overuse of some medical screening tests exposes patients to avoidable harms and contributes to high health care costs. This center seeks to understand and encourage appropriate use of screening. It focuses on conducting and disseminating research and developing strategies to improve patient and provider decision making. The three main research projects of this center focus on reducing the overuse of potentially harmful screening tests*, understanding physicians' and patients' perceptions of harms and how these affect decisionmaking*, and improving appropriate colorectal cancer screening in elderly patients.

Russell Harris, MD, MPH—Center Director
Noel Brewer, PhD, MS—Collaborative Scientific Lead
http://smart-screening.org/

Health Care Implementation

The Center for Research in Implementation Science and Prevention (CRISP) | University of Colorado 
This center is exploring methods to increase the use of preventive health services within primary health care settings to meet national public health goals. The three main research projects of this center look at reminder and recall methods to increase immunization rates in young children*, bidirectional text messaging to improve cardiovascular screening and management, and a family-focused childhood obesity prevention intervention using community health workers.

Note: These research projects link to .pdf files describing the projects. To get a free version of the Adobe Acrobat reader go to http://www.hhs.gov/plugins.html.

Educational Resources

Training and educating researchers and clinicians in implementation science is a key objective for CRISP. CRISP's educational framework covers 4 domains: 1) Theory and Strategies; 2) Community and Stakeholder Engagement; 3) Tools and Approaches; and 4) Evaluation: Design and Analysis. Currently CRISP offers:

• Insights and Innovation in Improving Health, a monthly seminar series with archived webinars:
  http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/medicalschool/programs/crisp/training/Pages/
  Seminar-Series.aspx.
• Links to other learning opportunities, education events, webinars and programs:
  http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/medicalschool/programs/crisp/training/Pages/
  other-learning-opps.aspx.

Allison Kempe, MD, MPH—Center Director
Elaine Morrato, DrPH, MPH—Collaborative Scientific Lead
http://www.ucdenver.edu/academics/colleges/medicalschool/programs/crisp/Pages/default.aspx

Support and Evaluation Team

A separate award to help support, coordinate, and evaluate the impact of the centers was made to Abt Associates and the MacColl Center for Health Care Innovation.

Lisa LeRoy, MBA, PhD—Project Director, Abt Associates
Judith Schaefer, MPH—Lead, MacColl Center for Health Care Innovation

Bundling Clinical Preventive Services: A Review of Definitions and Concepts from the Literature (  PDF version - 104.67 KB )

This brief white paper, written by the Support and Evaluation Team, explores how the concept of bundling -- that is, offering together – is used in the health care literature in the context of clinical preventive services.