What is an intervention?
Interventions come in many shapes and sizes. An intervention might be a program, a policy change, an environmental change, a campaign, a new partnership or a different practice or way of doing things. What these things all have in common is that they create change. In public health, these changes are meant to influence individual behaviors and health as well as the environments to support those individuals.
In the book Intervention, Vernon E. Johnson describes intervention as a “process by which the harmful, progressive, and destructive effects of chemical dependency are interrupted and the chemically dependent person is helped to stop using mood-altering chemicals [e.g., alcohol] and to develop new, healthier ways for coping with his or her needs and problems.” The ultimate goal of an intervention is to get the alcoholic into a treatment program.
