Abstract
Because families are the primary food socialization agent for children, they are a key target for nutrition interventions promoting healthy eating development. Although researchers and clinicians have developed and tested successful family nutrition interventions, few have gained widespread dissemination. Prevention and implementation science disciplines can inform the design, testing, and dissemination of feeding interventions to advance the goals of widespread adoption and population health impact. We review concepts and frameworks from prevention science and dissemination and implementation (D&I) research that are useful to consider in designing, implementing, and evaluating feeding interventions. Risk and protective factor frameworks, types of translation processes, and implementation dimensions are explained. Specifically, we address how research–practice partnerships can reduce time to dissemination, how designing for modularity can allow for contextual adaptation, how articulating core components can strengthen fidelity and guide adaptation, and how establishing technical assistance infrastructure supports these processes. Finally, we review strategies for building capacity in D&I research and practice for nutrition professionals. In sum, the research and knowledge bases from prevention and implementation sciences offer guidance on designing and delivering family interventions in ways that maximize the potential for their broad dissemination, reducing time to translation and optimizing interventions for real-world settings.
Highlights
Childhood is recognized as a critical period for establishing healthy eating behaviors
We propose structural changes to engage researchers and train front-line providers in dissemination and implementation strategies to optimize family feeding interventions for community-level benefit
The research and knowledge bases from prevention and implementation sciences can offer guidance on designing and delivering family interventions in ways that maximize the potential for their broad dissemination
Summary
Childhood is recognized as a critical period for establishing healthy eating behaviors. The family is a key target for public health nutrition interventions that promote healthy child eating development. Breastfeeding promotion has been successfully implemented in many parts of the world [6], interventions that target child eating development after age two are less prevalent. As interdisciplinary fields that focus on closing the research-to-practice gap, frameworks from prevention and implementation science offer guidance for optimizing the impact of interventions in real-world settings. In this narrative review, we highlight seminal research describing prevention and implementation science and suggest four practices to maximize dissemination and implementation: creating research–practice partnerships, designing for modularity, articulating core components, and establishing technical assistance to increase dissemination and implementation of interventions. We propose structural changes to engage researchers and train front-line providers in dissemination and implementation strategies to optimize family feeding interventions for community-level benefit
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