Evidence to Practice: Implementing Evidence-Based Prevention Programs

Implementation science has been established to fill the knowledge–practice gap and to accelerate the translation of evidence-based interventions into practice. It has been defined as the scientific study of methods to promote the systematic uptake of research findings and other evidence-based practices into routine practice in order to improve the quality and effectiveness of health services. In this chapter, we will elaborate on tools and methods that researchers may find helpful to implement evidence-based interventions for prevention. We will firstly introduce the concept of implementation science and discuss where implementation research sits on the translational research pipeline, and how it can be conceptualized in relation to efficacy and effectiveness research. Second, we shed light on theories, conceptual frameworks and models that help researchers plan, guide and evaluate their implementation efforts. Some major frameworks that are commonly used in prevention research are presented. Third, we discuss implementation strategies and elaborate on how they can be tailored to the context. Examples from a chronic disease project are provided. Fourth, we discuss implementation outcomes before we briefly introduce common study designs in implementation science. We conclude this chapter by summarizing the evidence to date and outline future research avenues for implementing evidence-based interventions for prevention.