These are two dramatically different exercises. In recent decades much work in the public health field has focused on the first, on identifying the primary causes of poor health, including their prevalence and distribution, and on developing an evidence-based understanding of the interventions that will work to addresses those causes. There is broad consensus on the methodology for evaluating evidence of the efficacy of interventions. The randomized controlled trial is widely accepted as the “gold standard,” though multiple other techniques are necessarily used to produce valuable evidence that is considered.
