NIH Conference on Building the Science of Dissemination and Implementation in the Service of Public Health

click here to print

This trans-NIH conference is part of OBSSR’s new strategic prospectus which seeks to facilitate increased support for the “science of implementation” as a key avenue for moving behavioral and social science forward. Specifically, the prospectus calls for research to understand the factors which are promoting or impeding the adoption, adaptation, implementation, and maintenance of evidence-based practices by health providers, insurers, policy makers, and the public.

This conference is also building on the momentum of three existing trans-NIH Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs) which aim to support dissemination and implementation research (“Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health,” PAR-07-086, PAR-06-520, and PAR-06-521; http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-07-086.html; http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-06-520.html; http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-06-521.html).

These FOAs seek to test models which will sustain evidence-based health behavior change, preventive, diagnostic, treatment, and quality of life improvement services into public health and clinical practice settings.

For the purposes of this conference, we are utilizing the following definitions as put forward in the Program Announcements: “Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health.”

Dissemination is the targeted distribution of information and intervention materials to a specific public health or clinical practice audience. The intent is to spread knowledge and the associated evidence-based interventions. Research on dissemination addresses how information about health promotion and care interventions are created, packaged, transmitted, and interpreted among a variety of important stakeholder groups.

Implementation is the use of strategies to adopt and integrate evidence-based health interventions and change practice patterns within specific settings. Research on implementation addressed the level to which health interventions can fit within real-world public health and clinical service systems.

This distinction is important because interventions developed in the context of efficacy and effectiveness trials are rarely transferable without adaptations to specific settings. Therefore, research is needed to examine the process of integrating evidence-based interventions into diverse practice settings—settings that may be similar to but also somewhat different from the ones in which the intervention was developed and tested.

The goals of the conference are four-fold:

To explicate the state of the theory, methods, and practice of dissemination and implementation research;
To highlight where increased conceptual, empirical, and methodological development is needed, thus identifying challenges for the field;
To foster dissemination and implementation science with the ultimate goal of improving public health through the availability, adoption, adaptation, and sustained maintenance of efficacious approaches that improve the quality of health and human services; and
To recruit additional researchers and develop a diverse community of scientists, thus fostering the interdisciplinary collaborations necessary to pursue such complex and multidimensional dissemination and implementation research.

The first day of the conference (September 10th, 2007) will consist of targeted science presentations and dialogues that will provide an in-depth review of the field of dissemination and implementation research.

The second half-day (September 11, 2007) will consist of a technical assistance workshop for researchers who are interested in submitting an application under the current funding opportunity announcements. Interested participants must submit a two-page concept paper that includes no more than one page of specific aims and a one-page research design description. These concept papers will be used to provide feedback to participants and to organize content-specific discussion groups during the workshop concept paper guidelines. Participants are also encouraged to view the webcast of the initial technical assistance workshop, sponsored by NIMH and NCI, which was held on March 26, 2007 prior to attending the September 11th workshop (http://www.scgcorp.com/dissem2007/index.asp; http://videocast.nih.gov/PastEvents.asp).

For more background information on Dissemination and Implementation Research, please see bibliography.