A Dutch admission system for health promotion interventions

Registration or recognition systems for best-practice health promotion interventions may contribute to better quality assurance and control in health promotion practice. In the Netherlands such a system has been developed and is being implemented aiming to provide policy makers and professionals with more information on the quality and effectiveness of available health promotion interventions and to promote use of good-practice and evidence-based interventions by health promotion organisations. The quality assessments are supervised by the Netherlands Organisation for Public Health and the Environment and the Netherlands Youth Institute and conducted by two sub-committees, one for interventions aimed at youth and one for adults. I chair the sub-committee for admission of interventions aimed at adults. These committees consist of experts in the fields of research, policy and practice. Four levels of recognition are distinguished inspired by the UK Medical Research Council’s evaluation framework for complex interventions to improve health: (I) theoretically sound; (II) probable effectiveness; (III) established effectiveness; (IV) established cost-effectiveness. Specific criteria have been set for each level of recognition, except for level 4 which will be included from 2011. Yesterday a meeting was held between representatives of the supervising organisations, the two sub-committee chairs, and representatives of the main stakeholders, i.e. the organisations responsible for the development and implementation of health promotion interventions in the Netherlands (such as the Netherlands Nutrition Center, the Netherlands Institute for Sport and Physical Activity, the national organisation for Municipal Health Services, and the Netherlands Institute for Homosexuality, Health and Wellbeing). This meeting was pasrt of a first evaluation of the admission system, i.e. to discuss the mutual experiences with the system and to explore further developments.