Challenges and opportunities in public health perspectives on family interventions: introduction to the special section.

This introduction to the special section frames the idea of a public health approach to couple and family interventions as focusing upon the impact of interventions on outcomes at the population level. It notes the importance of looking at how evidence-based interventions can be used more effectively at the population level. It also stresses that the goals for population-level studies are different from randomized clinical trials. Public health interventions need evidence that the interventions can be used in widespread practice, that the interventions are cost effective when used as designed, and that monitoring and evaluation tools are available for adopting agencies. Finally, this introduction introduces the three articles of the series.