ODP’s Strategic Priority V seeks to identify and promote the use of evidence-based practices and interventions and promote dissemination and implementation (D&I) research in disease prevention. To achieve these aims, the ODP has collaborated with multiple partners to fund research and training opportunities, initiate the first steps in a trans-NIH D&I portfolio analysis, and provide information and interactive tools to support investigators, public health professionals, and other stakeholders.
The ODP has joined with 17 other NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices to co-sign three funding opportunities for Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health—research project grants (R01), small grants (R03), and exploratory/development research grants (R21). Funded grant applications will help to identify, develop, evaluate, and refine effective and efficient methods, systems, infrastructures, and strategies to disseminate and implement evidence-based practices and programs into public health, clinical practice, and community settings.
The ODP co-funds the Training Institute for Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health (TIDIRH). This training, conducted by leading experts, provides investigators with theory, implementation, and evaluation approaches to D&I and helps them create partnerships and multilevel, transdisciplinary research teams. The trainees will learn how to choose research designs, select methods and analyses appropriate for D&I investigations, and conduct research at different and multiple levels of intervention (e.g., clinical, community, policy).
Our Office also co-funds and assists in planning the Annual Conference on the Science of Dissemination and Implementation in Health. This conference is focused on the highest priorities for D&I science to help optimize health and health care in the United States and globally. ODP staff co-lead the meeting’s Prevention and Public Health Track, which highlights innovative research on methods for evaluating the dissemination or implementation of interventions to prevent disease and improve public health (including research design, measurement, data analysis, or data visualization).
ODP staff are collaborating with the National Cancer Institute’s Implementation Science Program as well as with staff from the National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Nursing Research, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and the Fogarty International Center to develop a trans-NIH codebook to facilitate D&I portfolio analysis. By systematically monitoring the D&I portfolio funded by the NIH, we can better assess the progress of research over time and enhance partnerships that promote D&I research within the field of disease prevention.
Lastly, the ODP has updated and developed several webpages to provide D&I-related information, tools, and other resources to assist a variety of stakeholders. For example, a new Research Highlight has been developed to feature D&I research activities, scientific advances, and resources from the NIH and other federal partners. This section now also contains a selection of recent, peer-reviewed articles on D&I research. The Evidence-Based Practices and Programs section identifies several databases and other resources that provide information to community planners and implementers, health care and public health professionals, policymakers, and researchers to promote public health using evidence-based strategies. We have also created a new Resources for Researchers section on D&I research. The section, which was developed in collaboration with the trans-NIH D&I Working Group, includes examples of funded projects; training opportunities; frameworks, theories, and models; and D&I-related programs, offices, and divisions at the NIH. The section also includes links to many of the above-mentioned resources. In the near future, the section will also provide information on research funding opportunity announcements across all Institutes, Centers, and Offices.
I strongly believe our efforts to identify and promote the use of evidence-based interventions and promote the conduct of D&I research in disease prevention are helping to integrate scientific evidence, practice, and policy with the ultimate goal of improving disease prevention and promoting health across individual, organizational, and community levels.
David M. Murray, Ph.D.
Associate Director for Prevention
Director of the Office of Disease Prevention