Background: Knowledge about health program planning, implementation, and evaluation is abundant, but information on health promotion program sustainability is less available and often fragmented. Sustainability is important to public health decision-makers and practitioners for several reasons, including the ability to study long-term effects, the latency period between program activities and health effects, the potential for investment loss, and the negative impact of discontinued programs on community mobilization.Rapid Response Question: How can the sustainability of a public health (food fortification) program be ensured?Findings: Ensuring program sustainability involves considering the social structures of sustainability, including organizational routines set within institutional standards. âRoutinizationâ is the primary process for achieving program sustainability within organizations, leading to organizational routines defined by memory, adaptation, values, and rules. Standardization is the secondary process, where institutional standards, such as state-level rules and policies, create more sustainable standardized routines. Implementation and sustainability are related and concomitant processes, with specific events influencing each.Conclusion: To ensure the sustainability of a public health intervention program, organizations must consider social structures, including organizational routines within institutional standards, and recognize the interconnectedness of implementation and sustainability processes.
