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Health care implementation science has contributed valuable theory and empirical evidence and has advanced efforts to identify and address important conceptual and methodological challenges in implementation research. Implementation research in health care has also helped stimulate increased policy and practice interest and has facilitated the field's continuing transformation into a coherent, integrated body of research encompassing multiple disciplines and domains. This chapter briefly reviews key stages in the evolution and development of implementation science in health care, describes the range of settings and effective practices of interest to implementation researchers—and the implementation strategies and programs developed to facilitate improvements in health care processes and outcomes—and examines key challenges and future directions in the field. A case study of an integrated program of implementation research in schizophrenia illustrates many of the ideas discussed in the chapter.

This chapter explains the need for a book on translational research methods and the importance of such research for bridging the gap between social work research and practice. It examines some of the reasons why too little research has been translated and implemented as social work practice, and explains how translational and implementation research in social work can support the profession and its core mission. Translational research is defined as the study of the process of research translation. Translational research ranges from studies of the effectiveness of an intervention or evidence-based practice in a real-world setting in achieving a specific set of outcomes to the dissemination of information and intervention materials to a specific social work, public health, or clinical practice audience, as well as the assessment and facilitation of its adoption, use, and sustainability in such settings. The chapter concludes with a summary of each of the remaining chapters.

This chapter outlines key issues of evidence-based theories and frameworks for policy dissemination research, discusses policy intervention design, and specifies potential challenges that may be faced in policy dissemination research. It provides entry points into a rapidly growing and widely dispersed literature that crosses multiple disciplines, including public health, political science, and economics. Because the field of dissemination and implementation research is so new, the “implementation” literature on setting-specific evidence-based interventions is sparse; therefore, the remainder of the chapter focuses instead on policy dissemination research.

This chapter discusses how the proven effectiveness of HF resulted in its widespread dissemination. Those opting for a faithful replication of PHF usually sought direct advice and consultation from Tsemberis. Pathways to Housing in New York also expanded to other cities. Spinoff programs, begun at Pathways to Housing’s instigation and having a shared governance structure, were founded in Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Vermont. Yet as more programs emerged, identifying what was and was not a “HF program” became increasingly difficult, which motivated the publication of a HF manual and fidelity metric. Within this chapter, domestic variants of PHF and other versions of HF are described using an implementation science framework.

Integral to the translational science framework is analysis of what happens to the knowledge generated through research. There exists a burgeoning science that addresses how research-based knowledge and innovations inform and are adopted into practice and how practice informs the development of the research agenda. The body of research concerned with the dissemination and implementation of knowledge and technology identifies factors that determine the crucial processes of translating research results into routine practice and policy. The goal is to increase the extent to which “best practices” are implemented. This chapter examines approaches that address these science-to-practice translational research issues for social work investigators engaged in substance use research.

A number of methods for improving organizational operations are becoming more common in human service organizations. Capacity building typically addresses enhancing management systems capacity in areas such as strategic planning, information systems, and fund development. Benchmarking and best practices are tools that can be used at the level of the entire organization or for specific service delivery practices to search for models that can be adapted to one’s own organization. Implementing evidence-based practices, known broadly as implementation science, is a very common organizational change challenge for human service organizations these days. Formal evidence-based practice implementation methods for human service organizations include the exploration, adoption/preparation, implementation, and sustainment model and the work of the National Implementation Research Network. Organizational learning and learning organization principles are become increasingly better known in human service organizations and actually represent an arena of organizational change that can help organizations develop ongoing methods for continuous improvement.

An estimated 65% of the world’s land and more than 80% of Earth’s biodiversity are under indigenous or local community customary ownership, care, and use. Recent developments in remote sensing, geographic information systems (GIS), mobile, and cloud computing provide the opportunity to systematically and cost-effectively monitor land-cover and land-use changes and threats at multiple scales. It is now possible, via satellite observations, to obtain a synoptic view of ecosystems at spatial and temporal resolutions that are more detailed, locally relevant, and consistent from village to global scales. However, to make geospatial data and technologies work for conservation, we still need to understand how data turn into actionable information and conservation decisions. This chapter uses Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation as a framework to discuss insights from 18 years of using geospatial technologies with the local communities, village and district governments, and other partners to monitor chimpanzee habitats and threats and inform chimpanzee conservation strategies and actions in Tanzania. It focuses on how Earth Observation data and associated technologies enabled and benefitted from the creation of research-implementation spaces in which stakeholders were able to collaborate and interact with geospatial data and results in a diversity of ways. This enabled development of geospatial applications and solutions ‘with’ and not ‘for’ local stakeholders, resulting in expansion of new protected areas managed by village and districts governments and restoration of habitats in some degraded village forest reserves.

Randomized control trials (RCTs) are considered to be the gold standard for impact evaluation in international development and they are associated with a new era of evidence-based global health policies. However, there are inherent challenges in using RCTs to answer some of the most important questions in global health: why, if solutions are known, affordable at scale, and supported by existing evidence, do hundreds of millions of people lack access to essential health services? A lack of clarity on appropriate research methods for strengthening health systems has corresponded to a lack of investment in more complex and adaptive systems of integrated care delivery. This chapter reviews the use of RCTs in global health, highlighting major contributions, and addressing some pressing priorities in implementation research at a time when the Sustainable Development Goals emphasize the importance of sector-wide approaches, such as integrated primary care and universal health coverage.

At present, there is the highest number of displaced persons since World War II. Add to that the approximately one billion people living in so-designated fragile states, as well as multiple large-scale humanitarian crises. These vulnerable populations are subject direct and indirect health effects. Unfortunately, delivering effective interventions to them is fraught with difficulty, and the evidence base is weak. The chapter examines the conditions that give rise to acute and prevalent health risks among vulnerable populations, and the present challenges to research. These issues are particularly pertinent to inform our understanding of the ecology of infectious disease. Research contributions are also essential to address infectious diseases and to weigh the relative benefits and risks of different control options. Effective research in crises provides critical information for our understanding of infections among the most vulnerable.