Dissemination and Implementation Research in Community and Public Health Settings

Abstract

Abstract There are many opportunities to disseminate and implement evidence-based programs and policies (EBPPs) through public health and community settings to support health and work toward health equity and justice. This chapter highlights the breadth of these opportunities. Making the most of these opportunities will require significant prioritization and investment of time and financial resources on the part of funders, research institutions, public health agencies, community partners, and policymakers. Funding agencies, along with others internationally, have also created and supported infrastructures to increase access to information about evidence-based programs and linkages between researchers and practitioners in public health and community organizations. However, these relatively small steps at their current level of support will be insufficient to accelerate closing the discovery-delivery gap. Closing this gap necessitates an increase in funding for this type of dissemination and implementation (D&I) research beyond the typical, disease-specific funding structures and an increase in the support for collaborations between researchers and practitioners, such as the recognition of community-focused research activities and products in tenure and promotion standards and value placed on practice-based research. Absent a significant effort at redesigning and increasing investments in D&I research and knowledge translation on the part of science and service funding agencies, and a similar change in the academic rewards for research, practice, and policy partnerships, integrating the lessons learned from research with those learned from practice and policy, the ideal of research influencing practice and policy and vice versa will remain a side show to our seemingly unquenchable thirst for discovery.