The fifth column on Evidence-Based Behavioral Medicine is focused on the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) report entitled "Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming Prevention, Care, Education, and Research." The IOM has reported that chronic pain affects 116 million American adults, which is greater than the total of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes combined. It is recommended that data collection takes place at regular intervals using standardized questions, survey protocols, and electronic medical records with the aim of the identifying the following: subpopulations at risk; characteristics of acute and chronic pain; health consequences of pain, including death, disease, and disability; and longitudinal trends of pain. In addition, health education programs should be redesigned to include information about self-management, actions to prevent injuries at the individual and community level, advocacy for pain treatment, and support for improved prevention and control policies. Through teamwork between various professions, from physicians, nurses, and psychologists to physical therapists, pharmacists, and policy makers, advancements in pain awareness, education, research, and treatment should begin to materialize.

Diabetes self-management is central to diabetes care overall, and much of self-management entails individual behavior change, particularly around dietary patterns and physical activity. Yet individual-level behavior change remains a challenge for many persons with diabetes, particularly for racial/ethnic minorities who disproportionately face barriers to diabetes-related behavioral changes. Through the South Side Diabetes Project, officially known as “Improving Diabetes Care and Outcomes on the South Side of Chicago,” our team sought to improve health outcomes and reduce disparities among residents in the largely working-class African American communities that comprise Chicago's South Side. In this article, we describe several aspects of the South Side Diabetes Project that are directly linked to patient behavioral change, and discuss the theoretical frameworks we used to design and implement our programs. We also briefly discuss more downstream program elements (e.g., health systems change) that provide additional support for patient-level behavioral change.

Racial and ethnic minorities suffer disproportionately from diabetes-related morbidity and mortality. With the creation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) under the Affordable Care Act, healthcare organizations may have an increased motivation to implement interventions that collaborate with community resources and organizations. As a result, there will be an increasing need for evidence-based strategies that integrate healthcare and community components to reduce diabetes disparities. This paper summarizes the types of community/health system partnerships that have been implemented over the past several years to improve minority health and reduce disparities among racial/ethnic minorities and describes the components that are most commonly integrated. In addition, we provide our recommendations for creating stronger healthcare and community partnerships through enhanced community support.

To reduce racial and ethnic disparities in diabetes care and outcomes, it is critical to integrate health care and community approaches. However, little work describes how to expand and sustain such partnerships and initiatives. We outline our experience creating and growing an initiative to improve diabetes care and outcomes in the predominantly African American South Side of Chicago. Our project involves patient education and activation, a quality improvement collaborative with six clinics, provider education, and community partnerships. We aligned our project with the needs and goals of community residents and organizations, the mission and strategic plan of our academic medical center, various strengths and resources in Chicago, and the changing health care marketplace. We use the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Finding Answers: Disparities Research for Change conceptual model and the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research to elucidate how we expanded and sustained our project within a shifting environment. We recommend taking action to integrate health care with community projects, being inclusive, building partnerships, working with the media, and understanding vital historical, political, and economic contexts.

Evidence based practice (EBP) is reflected in social work publications, accreditation standards, research, and funding opportunities. However, implementing EBP in social work practice and education has proven challenging, highlighting the need for additional resources. This paper describes the Transdisciplinary Model of EBP, a model based on advances in EBP across health disciplines including social work and its application to the development of an online EBP training portal. Utility of the Transdiciplinary Model and a training portal for social work education is discussed. Also included is a description of the training modules, the Council on Social Work Education Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards competencies reflected in the modules, and a case example using the modules in a master s of social work course.