The CDC Healthy Aging Research Network: Advancing Science Toward Action and Policy for the Evidence-Based Health Promotion Movement

Despite recent progress in the uptake of evidence-based health promotion (EBHP) programs within communities, many factors contribute to the need to focus on dissemination. These include the growth in the aging population, health care resource limitations, and interests in preserving community-based opportunities for maintaining independence and maximizing quality of life. For these reasons, The Prevention Research Centers’ Healthy Aging Research Network (HAN), funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Healthy Aging Program, has as its core mission, to translate effective healthy aging interventions into sustainable community-based programs. Researchers and community-based stakeholders collaborate across HAN’s seven member center and two affiliate universities (Figure 1) to develop and implement health promotion programs for older adults at individual, organizational, environmental, and policy levels (1–3). This commentary highlights selected HAN contributions to the EBHP movement from 2001 to 2014. These contributions serve as examples of potential models for future partnership efforts to enhance implementation, dissemination, and sustainability of EBHP programs.