Progress in Health-Related Behavioral Intervention Research: Making It, Measuring It, and Meaning It

Measurable progress toward better outcomes is hard to find in health-related behavioral intervention research and practice. This report examines several barriers to progress toward better outcomes and discusses ways to overcome them. The solutions it presents include strengthening our collective commitment to achieving better outcomes; incentivizing this kind of progress; conducting more definitive, outcome-oriented randomized controlled trials; developing methods to measure successful treatment outcomes and to track success rate trends; and embracing stepwise approaches to preventing and treating health-related behavioral and psychosocial problems. The report concludes with a call for guidance and leadership on this complex and challenging issue from scientific and professional organizations and from government entities that have a stake in improving the outcomes of health-related behavioral interventions.