What To Do

Identify the subproblems that you consider to be significant enough to need intervention. Consider behaviors, biology, and the social and physical environment in your review.

How To Do It

• Create a short list of the most important subproblems (three to seven) using:
  • mortality,
    
  • morbidity,
    
  • behavioral,
    
  • other relevant data. (Hint: Using consistent data will make it easier to prioritize and identify key subproblems.)
    
    
• Identify a list of criteria for setting priorities or use an established model for prioritizing such as the Basic Priority Rating Model. (http://www.health.gov/healthypeople/state/toolkit)
  
  
• You may choose among many appropriate criteria for setting priorities:
  • Size of the health problem
    
  • Seriousness of the health problem
    
  • Effectiveness of related interventions
    
  • Community concern
    
  • Lost output
    
  • Medical costs to treat the health problem
    
  • Preventable aspects of the problem
    
  • Emerging aspects of the problem
    
  • Disability associated with the problem
    
  • Current access to needed service
    
    
• Use an objective scoring system to prioritize subproblems.
  
  
• Determine how many subproblems your organization can address effectively.
  
  
• Determine how significantly a change in the subproblem will affect the health problem. To make this assessment, consider the following issues:
  
  • Link to the problem (How direct is the link?)
    
  • Prevalence (How common is the subproblem?)
    
  • Immediacy (How true to life or serious is the subproblem?)
    
  • Necessity (Is it necessary for this subproblem to be changed to affect the health problem?)
    

When this step is completed, you should have a prioritized list of subproblems which can benefit from an intervention.