About Us

ODP's Mission and Vision

ODP’s Mission Statement
The mission of the ODP is to improve the public health by increasing the scope, quality, dissemination, and impact of prevention research supported by the NIH. The ODP will fulfill this mission by providing leadership for the development, coordination, and implementation of prevention research in collaboration with NIH Institutes and Centers and other partners.

ODP’s Vision Statement
By 2018, the ODP will be a valuable resource to the NIH and the broader prevention research community, providing guidance in prevention research methodology, identifying gaps in existing evidence and facilitating the coordination of new activities to address those gaps, promoting quality improvements in the review and administration of prevention research, and increasing the impact and visibility of prevention research.

Four Main Focus Areas

Research Coordination
The ODP facilitates research into disease prevention and health promotion at the NIH through the Prevention Research Coordinating Committee, in partnership with other federal agencies, and through collaborations with other public and private partners.

Evidence Assessment
The ODP operates the Consensus Development Program, which produces evidence-based consensus statements addressing controversial medical issues important to health care providers, patients, policy-makers, and the general public.

Training and Education
The ODP coordinates a variety of training and education programs, including: Medicine: Mind the Gap, a lecture series on cutting-edge differences between current science and practice; Medicine in the Media, an annual training course for journalists, and the Robert S. Gordon, Jr. Lecture in Epidemiology, given each year by a prominent voice in prevention research.

Communications and Outreach
The ODP responds to public inquiries and media requests about NIH programs focused on prevention research. The goal is to provide timely, accurate information about disease prevention and health promotion research and about ODP's programs to a wide variety of internal and external audiences.