Enabling Improvements: Combining Intervention and Implementation Research
Title
Enabling Improvements: Combining Intervention and Implementation Research
Author
Schober, Barbara
Spiel, Christiane
Research Area
Special Areas of Interdisciplinary Study
Topic
Applications of Social Science Knowledge to Policy
Abstract
Transferring evidence‐based intervention programs effectively into practice and into the wider field of public policy often fails, even if the logic of evidence‐based approaches has become highly important in recent years. As a consequence, the field of implementation research has emerged, implementation frameworks have been developed, and implementation studies have been conducted. However, even if intervention research and implementation research have both achieved mentionable progress in the past, they are rather unrelated, and different traditions and research groups are involved. This might be one of the key reasons why there are still many problems in transferring evidence‐based programs into widespread community. In order to enable improvement in this field, in this essay, we argue for a systematic integration of intervention and implementation research as a promising emerging approach. Therefore, we recommend a six‐step procedure requiring researchers to design and develop intervention programs using a field‐oriented and participative approach from the beginning on. In particular, the perspective of policymakers has to be included as well as the wider context of values, rewarding systems, and basic attitudes in science.