The Program Sustainability Assessment Tool (PSAT) and Clinical Sustainability Assessment Tool (CSAT) were developed at the Center for Public Health Systems Science (CPHSS), a public health research and evaluation center at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. Our Center is a recognized leader in public health systems research and evaluation. Our vision is to shape public health systems and policies, leading to healthier individuals and communities.

Our Center’s sustainability work began in 2003 with Project LEaP, a thorough process evaluation examining effects of funding reductions on eight state tobacco control programs. Understanding sustainability is a challenge not only for public health, but also social service and clinical care programs, in 2010 we began developing, refining and disseminating the Sustainability Framework and Assessment Tool. The final tool has been reliability tested and can be used by programs in many levels and settings to better understand and plan for their sustainability.

While many clinical programs were using the PSAT to assess sustainability, we found that some of the tool’s language that is common in public health did not translate well to clinical care. Our Center designed the Clinical Sustainability Framework and Assessment Tool to address this gap and measure sustainability factors specific to clinical care. The CSAT has also been reliability tested and can be used to assess a wide range of clinical practices in a variety of healthcare settings.

Douglas Luke, PhD is the Sustainability Project’s Principal Investigator.