As mortality and mean hospital LOS correlate with increasing time spent at the ED, even when controlling for comorbid conditions [ 30], decreasing the LOS at the ED could be an objective for future intervention studies.
Improving working conditions in remote areas has also been an objective for a number of policy interventions by, for example, allowing more flexible working arrangements [ 32, 33], or improving access to communication [ 16, 18, 34, 35].
But the primary objective for intervention would remain unequivocally humanitarian, and as such would be much less susceptible to anti-Western blowback than any other mission.
For example, a change objective for an intervention might be to increase adolescents' self-efficacy to resist social pressure to use drugs.
From the interviews it became clear that communicating the health promoting activities in a suitable manner for the target group should be an important objective for the intervention programme.
Information collected in the needs assessment resulted in the formulation of a main objective for this intervention program: reduction of long-term sick leave and disability for sick-listed employees with SMDs.
In step 1 of the IM process an overall program objective for the intervention was formulated, and the target group and stakeholders were specified.
Estimating the costs of an illness is useful to inform decision makers about the economic relevance of a health problem and feasible objectives for interventions.
Therefore, future applications of expression profiling of these genes in biopsied samples may contribute to clinical practice and may promote objective criteria for intervention, such as endoscopic mucosal resection.
In 1990, an objective criterion for medical futility was defined for interventions and drug therapy imparting a less than 1% chance of survival [ 23], and this level remains a basis for current futility research [ 5].
However, measurement of percent recovery of peripheral blood flow was an objective measure, was blind for intervention or control.
