Foundations of Dissemination and Implementation Science

Amy Drahota

Associate Professor

Psychology

Michigan State University

I would like to embed social action theories, models and frameworks within my existing upper level undergraduate and graduate level courses and to facilitate knowledge and application of effective social action strategies. This would be a great addition to the graduate level courses that I teach (Foundations of Dissemination and Implementation Science, Community Psychology Practicum, Child & Adolescent Assessment and Therapy) as well as would augment the upper level undergraduate course that I teach related to health communication and dissemination science. I really want to have a curated learning experience about social action history, research related to social action, and to better understand the effectiveness of various social action strategies. Social Action is a foundational principle of Community Psychology and is becoming more notable as a critical skill for clinical science/clinical psychology. Thus, learning how might be effective methods for incorporating and teaching social action within my courses would build the capacity of our graduate-level and upper-level undergraduate students.

One of the stumbling blocks in any translational research agenda is the movement of evidence-based and empirically-supported policies, practices, and information from laboratory or academic settings to communities and community-based settings. The purpose of this course is to provide students with a foundation in dissemination and implementation science research and its function as a mechanism to facilitate this movement to overcome the often-noted research-to-practice gap. This course will familiarize students with the current state of the knowledge, theories and frameworks, research design, and methods for studying the dissemination, adoption, implementation, and sustainment of interventions in the context of organizations and systems. Given the complex and multi-level context of implementation research, the course will cover pragmatic designs and an array of methodological approaches.