Abstract
Municipal actors do not experience sufficient scientific support in the development and selection of preventive and health promoting interventions. Intervention databases can remedy this by presenting scientifically validated and well-documented interventions. This allows local decisions to be informed by scientific evidence on the effectiveness of interventions. The databases can also be used to promote quality development of interventions.This paper explains methodological and conceptual considerations on how preventive and health-promoting interventions can be identified for databases and how they can be classified in terms of their effectiveness and prepared in a way that is appropriate for the target group. It is based on findings from the public health literature and the project "Ageing in Balance" ("Älter werden in Balance") of the Bundeszentrale für gesundheitliche Aufklärung (BZgA).Systematic reviews are of limited use in the search for suitable interventions for the database, partly because the types of interventions listed in them are limited and information relevant to implementation is often incompletely presented. However, it seems promising to include interventions from practice in the database if they are additionally classified with regard to their effectiveness or if consequences for further development and evaluation are formulated. In addition, as much information as possible should be provided on the practical implementation of interventions. A first suggestion shows what a description of the measures could look like. In addition, manuals for the implementation of measures should be available.