Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health

Fifteen to twenty years is how long it takes for the billions of dollars of health-related research to translate into evidence-based policies and programs suitable for public use. Over the past 15 years, an exciting science has emerged that seeks to narrow the gap between the discovery of new knowledge and its application in public health, mental health, and health care settings. Dissemination and implementation (D&I) research seeks to understand how to best apply scientific advances in the real world, by focusing on pushing the evidence-based knowledge base out into routine use. To help propel this crucial field forward, leading D&I scholars and researchers have collaborated to put together this volume to address a number of key issues, including: how to evaluate the evidence base on effective interventions; which strategies will produce the greatest impact; how to design an appropriate study; and how to track a set of essential outcomes. D&I studies must also take into account the barriers to uptake of evidence-based interventions in the communities where people live their lives and the social service agencies, hospitals, and clinics where they receive care. The challenges of moving research to practice and policy are universal, and future progress calls for collaborative partnerships and cross-country research. The fundamental tenet of D&I research—taking what we know about improving health and putting it into practice—must be the highest priority. This book is nothing less than a roadmap that will have broad appeal to researchers and practitioners across many disciplines.

Author(s):  
Graham A. Colditz ◽  
Karen M. Emmons

Given the growing emphasis on dissemination and implementation as a means to increase the efficiency of the research enterprise, public policy, and the services with which we work, refining methods that facilitate translation and implementation are imperative. Bringing the dissemination and implementation research community to common understanding of answers to our overarching questions is a necessary step. Then we can more consistently answer the questions: How will we gather this information on effective interventions to form the evidence base? Will interventions be applicable to our setting? What methods should we use to decide what to disseminate or implement? Which strategies will give us the greatest impact on population health? What outcomes should be tracked to know if we are making progress? How long will it take to show progress, or when will it be observed? The methods outlined in this book will help in answering these and other important questions.


Author(s):  
Gregory A. Aarons ◽  
Joanna C. Moullin ◽  
Mark G. Ehrhart

Both organizational characteristics and specific organizational strategies are important for the effective dissemination and implementation of evidence-based practices (EBPs) in health and allied health care settings, as well as mental health, alcohol/drug treatment, and social service settings. One of the primary goals of this chapter is to support implementers and leaders within organizations in attending to and shaping the context in which implementation takes place in order to increase the likelihood of implementation success and long-term sustainment. The chapter summarizes some of the most critical organizational factors and strategies likely to impact successful evidence-based practice implementation. There are myriad approaches to supporting organizational development and change—this chapter focuses on issues supported by relevant scientific literatures, particularly those germane to EBP implementation in health care and related settings.


Author(s):  
Antronette (Toni) Yancey ◽  
Beth A. Glenn ◽  
Chandra L. Ford ◽  
LaShawnta Bell-Lewis

The evidence base on dissemination and implementation of interventions for racial/ethnic minority communities is expanding rapidly. Although the strength of the evidence varies depending on the health outcome, some general trends are apparent. Key lessons include that cultural appropriateness enhances community “buy-in” of interventions. Interventions that reflect a community’s cultural values and that are implemented in ubiquitous settings are also associated with success. Efforts that account for place characteristics (e.g., neighborhood geography, intervention setting) can also improve the uptake of interventions. In conclusion, the importance of inclusivity and equity in public health efforts to prevent and control disease is paramount. The best way to achieve social justice and improve the health of the entire population is to ensure that the strategies most effective in preventing disease are disseminated within the populations at greatest risk.


Author(s):  
Lawrence W. Green ◽  
Mona Nasser

This chapter raises questions about the reliability of much “evidence-based practice” disseminated from the original studies and systematic reviews of those studies, insofar as they were often conducted and reviewed with inadequate attention to external validity. Important issues are raised for dissemination and implementation researchers. Indeed, the pressure on investigators to provide for increasingly rigorous controls on threats to internal validity, and to exclude studies that fall below standards for internal validity, has made many such sources of evidence more suspect in their external validity and less credible to the practitioners or policymakers who would adopt them. Greater attention is needed to ways to incorporate considerations of external validity into studies and in systematic reviews of studies to produce more generalizable evidence, and greater attention to practice-based evidence that can complement the more formal evidence-based practices in the process of implementing and evaluating the dissemination and implementation process


Author(s):  
Tamara Schloemer ◽  
Freia De Bock ◽  
Peter Schröder-Bäck

AbstractEvidence-based health promotion and disease prevention require incorporating evidence of the effectiveness of interventions into policy and practice. With the entry into force of the German Act to Strengthen Health Promotion and Prevention (PrävG), interventions that take place in people’s everyday living environments have gained in importance. Decision-makers need to assess whether an evidence-based intervention is transferable to their specific target context. The Federal Centre for Health Education (BZgA) recommends that transferability of an intervention should be clarified before any decision to implement it. Furthermore, transferability needs to be finally determined after an evaluation in the target context. In this article, we elaborate on theoretical and practical implications of the concept of transferability for health promotion and disease prevention based on the Population–Intervention–Environment–Transfer Models of Transferability (PIET-T). We discuss how decision-makers can anticipate transferability prior to the intervention transfer with the help of transferability criteria and how they can take transferability into account in the further process. This includes the steps of the analysis of a health problem and identification of effective interventions, the steps of the initial transferability assessment and identification of the need for adaptation, and the steps of the implementation and evaluation. Considering transferability is a complex task that comes with challenges. But it offers opportunities to select a suitable intervention for a target context and, in the transfer process, to understand the conditions under which the intervention works in this context. This knowledge helps to establish an evidence base, which is practically relevant.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. e000974
Author(s):  
Oluwatoyosi B A Owoeye ◽  
Rachel S Rauvola ◽  
Ross C Brownson

Knowledge from research evidence is wasted unless it is applied. While the scientific evidence base for many sports and exercise medicine and sports physical therapy interventions is robust, real-world implementation and evolution to scale remains an ongoing challenge. Dissemination and implementation research is important to generate evidence-informed, cost-effective and context-specific strategies for implementation partners and stakeholders to effectively apply and sustain the best research evidence in public health and clinical practice. However, this field of inquiry remains underexplored in sports and exercise medicine and sports physical therapy. Most intervention studies in sports and exercise medicine and sports physical therapy are terminated at the efficacy trial stage without considerations for best practices for translation to community and clinical settings. Lack of context-specific dissemination and implementation strategies to drive the translation of evidence-based interventions results in poor execution of, and attrition from, interventions, and this is associated with suboptimal outcomes and increased healthcare costs. Theory-driven quality research informing the successful dissemination and implementation of evidence-based interventions is needed to address lingering evidence-to-practice gaps. Dissemination and implementation research completes the final stage in the research-to-practice pipeline. It seeks to close evidence-to-practice gaps, thereby ensuring speedy application of research evidence to achieve desired public health outcomes while making more efficient use of limited resources. This review introduces sports and exercise medicine and sports physical therapy researchers and stakeholders to key concepts and principles in dissemination and implementation research.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 106
Author(s):  
Francesca Celletti ◽  
Anna Wright ◽  
Eric Buch ◽  
Badara Samb

Calls for evidence-based health policy have gathered force as an extension of the movement for evidence-based medicine. In clinical medicine, major investment has been made in efforts to systematize the collection and analysis of data and distinguish effective interventions from those that are less likely to work. In contrast, there is little consensus on what data are needed and what research methods are suitable and acceptable to produce a robust evidence base for social policy in the health sector. Evidence gathering for health policy must synthesise diverse sources, recognise the extent to which context influences policy outcomes, accommodate potentially conflicting interests and be flexible enough to respond to the time and resources pressures that are at play. Despite the challenges, there is scope for the development of a methodology that can draw on a wide range of evidence sources while retaining sufficient scientific rigour. These sources should extend from data generated using causal methods (randomized controlled trials) to information that can shed light on the many contextual and political issues that are also pertinent to health policy decision making.  


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross C. Brownson ◽  
Shiriki K. Kumanyika ◽  
Matthew W. Kreuter ◽  
Debra Haire-Joshu

Abstract Background There is growing urgency to tackle issues of equity and justice in the USA and worldwide. Health equity, a framing that moves away from a deficit mindset of what society is doing poorly (disparities) to one that is positive about what society can achieve, is becoming more prominent in health research that uses implementation science approaches. Equity begins with justice—health differences often reflect societal injustices. Applying the perspectives and tools of implementation science has potential for immediate impact to improve health equity. Main text We propose a vision and set of action steps for making health equity a more prominent and central aim of implementation science, thus committing to conduct implementation science through equity-focused principles to achieve this vision in U.S. research and practice. We identify and discuss challenges in current health disparities approaches that do not fully consider social determinants. Implementation research challenges are outlined in three areas: limitations of the evidence base, underdeveloped measures and methods, and inadequate attention to context. To address these challenges, we offer recommendations that seek to (1) link social determinants with health outcomes, (2) build equity into all policies, (3) use equity-relevant metrics, (4) study what is already happening, (5) integrate equity into implementation models, (6) design and tailor implementation strategies, (7) connect to systems and sectors outside of health, (8) engage organizations in internal and external equity efforts, (9) build capacity for equity in implementation science, and (10) focus on equity in dissemination efforts. Conclusions Every project in implementation science should include an equity focus. For some studies, equity is the main goal of the project and a central feature of all aspects of the project. In other studies, equity is part of a project but not the singular focus. In these studies, we should, at a minimum, ensure that we “leave no one behind” and that existing disparities are not widened. With a stronger commitment to health equity from funders, researchers, practitioners, advocates, evaluators, and policy makers, we can harvest the rewards of the resources being invested in health-related research to eliminate disparities, resulting in health equity.


Author(s):  
Diane T. Finegood

The published literature on the application of systems thinking to influence policies and programs has grown in recent years. The original article by Haynes et al and the subsequent commentaries have focused on the upstream connection between capacity building for systems thinking and systems informed decision-making. This commentary explores the downstream connection between systems-informed decision-making and broader impacts on the health system, the health of the population and other economic and social benefits. Storytelling, systems-based syntheses and systems intervention principles are explored as approaches to strengthen the evidence base. For systems thinking to gain broader acceptance and application to complex health-related challenges, we need more of an evidence base demonstrating impact.


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