Glossary
Intervention Mapping
What is Intervention Mapping?
Intervention Mapping is a structured process for planning health-promotion interventions using theory, evidence, and participation from the people and organizations concerned. It addresses both behavior and environmental conditions.
The six steps of Intervention Mapping
Fernandez and colleagues’ overview describes six steps:
- understand the problem and resources;
- specify desired changes;
- select methods and practical applications;
- produce the program;
- plan adoption and implementation;
- and plan evaluation.
How the process works
Each step produces information used in later decisions. Planners may return to earlier steps as they learn more about the population, setting, or proposed intervention. The sequence is therefore iterative, rather than a requirement to finish each decision permanently before proceeding.
The framework distinguishes a theoretical change method from the concrete activity used to deliver it. An intervention must fit its setting and preserve the conditions needed for the selected method to work.
Resources, evaluation and adaptation
The six steps also create practical planning questions: who will do the needs assessment, involve participants, produce the materials and collect evaluation data? Make the time and resources for that work explicit when deciding how to use the framework.
The authors describe the planning process and its applications. Following that process helps make decisions explicit, but does not establish that the resulting program works.
A planned program still needs process and outcome evaluation. The relevance of a program designed for one setting must be checked before it is transferred to another.