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U.S. state governments have the responsibility to regulate and license behavioral health care interventions, such as for addiction and mental illness, with increasing emphasis on implementing evidence-based programs (EBPs). A serious obstacle to this is lack of clarity or agreement about what constitutes “evidence-based.” The study’s purpose was to determine the extent to which and in what contexts web-based Evidence-based Program Registries (EBPRs) are referenced in state government statutes and regulations (“mandates”) concerning behavioral health care. Examples are What Works Clearinghouse, National Register of Evidence-based Programs and Practices, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. The study employed the Westlaw Legal Research Database to search for 30 known EBPR websites relevant to behavioral health care within the statutes and regulations of all 50 states. There was low prevalence of EBPR references in state statutes and regulations pertaining to behavioral health care; 20 states had a total of 33 mandates that referenced an EBPR. These mandates usually do not rely on an EBPR as the sole acceptable source for classifying a program or practice as “evidence-based.” Instead, EBPRs were named in conjunction with internal state or external sources of information about putative program effectiveness, which may be less valid than EBPRs, to determine what is “evidence-based.” Greater awareness of scientifically based EBPRs and greater understanding of their advantages need to be fostered among state legislators and regulators charged with making policy to increase or improve the use of evidence-based programs and practices in behavioral health care in the United States.

Evidence-based program registries (EBPRs) are web-based compilations of behavioral healthcare programs/interventions that rely on research-based criteria to rate program efficacy or effectiveness for support of programmatic decision-making. The objective was to determine the extent to which behavioral health decision-makers access EBPRs and to understand whether and exactly how they use the information obtained from EPBRs. Single State Authorities (SSAs) and service provider agencies in the areas of behavioral health and child welfare were recruited nationally. Senior staff (n = 375) responsible for the selection and implementation of programs and/or policies were interviewed by telephone concerning their visits (if any) to 28 relevant EBPRs, the types of information they were seeking, whether they found it, and how they may have used that information to effect changes in their organizations. At least one EBPR was visited by 80% of the respondents, with a median of three different registers being visited. Most visitors (55%) found all the information they were seeking; those who did not desired more guidance or tools for individual program implementation or were unable to locate the program or practice that they were seeking. Most visitors (65%) related using the information obtained to make changes in their organizations, in particular to select, start or change a program, or to support the adoption or improvement of evidence-based clinical practices. EBPRs were shown to be important resources for dissemination of research-based program effectiveness data, leading to increased use of evidence-based practices in the field, but the study also identified needs for greater awareness of EBPRs generally and for more attention to implementation of specific recommended programs and practices.

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