Intervention effectiveness evaluation criteria: promoting competitions and raising the bar

The Intervention Evaluation Competition at the Work, Stress, and Health conference in Miami (March 2006) highlighted the importance of intervention evaluation studies that promote safety and health at work. A retitled, "Best Practices Evaluation Competition," has been included in the March, 2008, Work, Stress, and Health conference, in Washington, DC. This brief note describes the development of the criteria used to evaluate the manuscripts. The criteria are discussed with respect to (a) improving the science of evaluation methodology, (b) promoting the highest ethical standards in intervention evaluation, and (c) using the current criteria as a starting point for continuing to raise the bar for evaluation methodology. The policy implications of the evaluation criteria are discussed as well.