Dissemination and Implementation Studies: The Statistician/Methodologist's Role and Responsibilities

Purpose: The long delay between health and healthcare research findings and everyday practice is critical. The science of dissemination and implementation (D & I) addresses this gap by understanding how to create, evaluate, report, disseminate, and integrate evidence-based interventions to improve health and prevent disease within clinical and community settings and how to recast the nature or conduct of the research itself to make it more relevant and actionable in those settings. While the D & I field is growing, there are only a few training programs for D & I research.

Methods: This presentation will focus on the roles and responsibilities of the statistician and/or methodologist in a D&I study and how those procedures and practices differ from those in a randomized control trial. This includes the design of a study, appropriate models or theoretical frameworks, frameworks for evaluation (i.e., RE-AIM), measurement issues, concerns of fidelity and re-invention or adaptation of successful interventions and the diffusion of innovation principles.

Results: We will frame our discussion with the 5 core values for D & I proposed by the NIH: rigor and relevance, efficiency, collaboration, improved capacity, and cumulative knowledge.

Conclusion: We have successfully developed many interventions demonstrated to significantly treat and prevent illness. It is imperative that we hasten the translation of these findings.