Interventions

An intervention in human development is a practice, program, or policy designed to impact one or more indices of well-being such as health, cognitive, or behavioral outcomes. This entry describes how interventions typically focus on promotion, prevention, or treatment and are designed to influence a narrow or broad band of variables through single or multiple methods that directly engage the target individual and/or the target individual’s social or physical context. It then describes the growing interest in the research base of interventions, emerging attempts to align the content and methods of interventions to specific populations, and interventions at the policy level.