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This final chapter summarizes the main themes of the book and discusses how these themes are linked together to articulate a strategy for conducting translational research. Four themes are summarized: the relationship between translational research and research translation; the interrelationships among process, outcomes, and context of research translation; the agency or organization as the locus of research; and the use of mixed-methods designs and community-based participatory research methods in conducting translational research. Cultural exchange is presented as a strategy for engaging in translational research. Whether it is an exchange between researchers representing different academic disciplines or methodological approaches, or an exchange between researchers and practitioners, cultural exchange is as fundamental to research translation as it is to translational research. Cultural exchange is also the mechanism by which translational research becomes transformative. The chapter concludes with a set of recommendations for developing the research infrastructure and advancing the field.

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.

Speaking broadly, translational research refers to the application of research findings, from basic science to practice-based and community research, to improve public health. Several authors have proposed more specific definitions to distinguish between the various phases of translation. This chapter provides an overview of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program, including CTSA community engagement programs; frameworks and models for community engagement; Community Advisory Boards and their role in CTSA community engagement; academic–community partnership evaluation; CTSA pilot study grant programs; and CTSA training programs in community-based participatory research (CBPR). In addition to increased efficiency and impact of biomedical research, the promise of the CTSA program is paradigm-shifting community-engaged, translational research aimed at improving health and alleviating suffering in diverse communities.

This final chapter discusses how evidence-based group work (EBGW) can be advanced in clinical settings, research, and education. There is a need for more research evidence about group work and articles about the application of EBGW in practice, including studies on the effectiveness of EBGW. The chapter includes strategies for building support for EBGW in organizations. It also describes how to advance EBGW in higher and continuing education and it highlights the validity of problem-based learning in teaching about EBGW. The Translational Research approach is offered as a model to advance EBGW research, practice, and education. In that model, there would be a planned and systemic collaboration between researchers, educators, and practitioners. Organizational structures would be supportive of EBGW, research would be practice-relevant and readily available to group workers, and education and consultation would be ongoing.

Chapter 6, which is targeted at anyone interested specifically in the life sciences, examines the implications of my analysis of data-centric science for biology as a discipline and for the knowledge thus gained about living organisms. I consider three examples of successful data integration within the field of plant science, which I take to exemplify three different modes of data integration in biology as a whole, each with its own goals, means and ways of valuing and assessing data. I then use this analysis to stress how differences in how data are elected, analyzed and integrated may challenge existing conceptions of what counts as scientific knowledge in the first place. Finally, I highlight the opportunities offered by data-centric research as well as the dangers and misconceptions associated with big data rhetoric and practices, paying particular attention to related processes of inclusion and exclusion, and the ways in which data infrastructures can affect the visibility and future development of research traditions both within and beyond the life sciences.

This chapter describes a collaborative research initiative bringing together academics and practitioners interested in how those engaged in policy and practice use, misuse or fail to use, knowledge on health promotion to modify and improve their work. It starts from the premise that health promotion is a ‘wicked issue’ and draws on theories of knowledge exchange and translation in an effort better to tackle complex problems. The chapter employs two contrasting examples: a series of knowledge translation workshops at Fuse, the Centre for Translational Research in Public Health, and the author’s experience as a consultant to WHO Regional Office for Europe during the preparation of its 2012 European Action Plan for Strengthening Public Health Capacities and Services. Both case studies highlight the importance of context, culture and politics in knowledge translation. The chapter also offers insights into how academic researchers should endorse their role in complex processes of knowledge translation.

Schizophrenia research encompasses many different categories of observation: (a) genetic research, which examines variants in single base pairs, (b) cellular and applied neuroscience, including animal models, (c) clinical research representing a broad spectrum of patient-centered research, and (d) population-based epidemiology and health services research. Each field of research has a natural tendency to become more specialized and, as a consequence, more inward looking. Meta-research, the study of the process of research per se, shows that creativity tends to occur at the boundaries of disciplines and research areas. This chapter examines ways to facilitate this type of cross-disciplinary translational research. Examples are provided of collaborative scientific programs that have used clues from fields such as epidemiology and genetics, and these clues are explored via the prism of various neuroscience platforms. Published in the Strungmann Forum Reports Series.

This chapter looks beyond Vietnam in order to examine virus surveillance, a far-reaching and anticipatory intervention to track viral mutations, inform containment strategies, and guide the development and distribution of pharmaceuticals worldwide. Virus surveillance rests on exchange relations whereby affected nations freely forward human and animal H5N1 viruses to global laboratories and pharmaceutical companies. The chapter aims to probe the notion of “sharing” that drives these surveillance strategies by examining recent moves to tether avian flu viruses to the nations from which they emerged. I show that while novel claims of ownership over human flu viruses have caused national and supranational actors to experiment with new global virus-sharing arrangements, similar arrangements have not emerged for animal viruses. These species-specific virus exchanges reveal that, for all the talk of species jumping and spillover, human and animal viruses travel through different bodies, different scientific networks, and different commodity markets where they obtain different moral, biological, and commercial value. These unsynchronized exchange relations are worth attending to because they illustrate the diverse economic and ethical interests that undergird global health security, and because they express the human exceptionalism that pervades the One Health formations that explicitly aim to move beyond it.

Part IV of this book briefly integrates lessons learned among the many chapters and discusses paths forward for future research in both animals and humans. Suggested future directions for animal research include continued efforts to uncover molecular, cell-specific, and circuit-level mechanisms through which estrogens regulate memory, increased attention to glia, de novo estrogen synthesis, interactions between neuromodulators, sex differences, hormonal changes across the lifespan, multiple brain regions, multiple forms of memory, and improving our models of menopause and estrogen therapy. Future clinical work would benefit better understanding the role of various estrogens in regulating cognition and mental illness in humans throughout the lifespan. In particular, many questions remain to be answered for menopausal women, including how reproductive history, menopausal estrogen loss, genetics, diet, stress, metabolic alterations, cardiovascular disease, and inflammation interact to influence memory and mood dysfunction. Addressing these issues will provide sorely needed insights into estrogen regulation of memory.

The field of public mental health has seen many advances in policy and discovery, yet there is much more to be done. We must move beyond a narrow focus on clinical interventions to now embrace the impact of community and population dynamics in promoting mental health, preventing mental illnesses, and fostering recovery. We must take advantage of emerging technologies, tools and strategies to expand discovery of the causes of mental illness that will inform new prevention and treatment strategies. Emerging tools can also guide the best implementation of individual and systems-level changes. Finally, we must continue to monitor the frequency of illness and related outcomes among individuals and populations to gauge our progress and highlight areas for continued improvement.

Social marketing is a process, an approach to behavior change rather than a distinct discipline, which has grown tremendously; there is a need for more research and guidance on best practices. Also, social marketing research is a process with multiple stages. These have been challenges in integrating and translating social marketing practice and research, just as in other fields of health promotion. This chapter explores the specific issues in social marketing and suggests how they can be resolved. The chapter concludes by laying out a continuum of social marketing research activities. Campaign objectives and needs should be considered in recommending which strategies to apply, and the mix of methods should be considered in recommending how to research and evaluate a campaign.