Elsevier

Preventive Medicine

Volume 49, Issue 4, October 2009, Pages 313-315
Preventive Medicine

Bridging the gap: Translating research into policy and practice

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2009.06.008Get rights and content

Abstract

Effective physical activity interventions do not achieve their full potential if they are not applied beyond their original testing in research studies. Potentially effective interventions can be adopted in community settings through the efforts of numerous agencies, organizations, and individuals. This paper highlights the important roles of public health practitioners and policy makers, who differ in their decision-making processes. To enhance the uptake of evidence-based interventions, several steps are needed to: build the science by moving upstream, increase the understanding of practice-based evidence, move beyond the “what” to the “how,” re-frame the dissemination challenges, place greater emphasis on workforce development, and make research more accessible for policy audiences. The most effective strategies to bridge the gap between research and practice, will have at their heart, effective academic-practice-policy maker partnerships.

Section snippets

The potential by setting

There are several important settings for D&I of physical activity interventions. Potentially effective interventions can be adopted in community settings through the efforts of numerous agencies, organizations, and individuals. Here, we highlight the important roles of public health practitioners and policy makers, whom differ in their decision-making processes (Table 1). Many of these differences can be considered contextual factors (Rabin et al., 2006), that should be kept in mind when

The path ahead

Drawing on experience in clinical and community practice, several lessons about D&I of evidence-based interventions to promote physical activity should be considered.

Conclusion

To ensure that scientific discoveries on reducing the burden of physical inactivity are realized, key actions are needed. For example, these are several immediate steps that researchers can take:

  • Design research trials for dissemination by involving end users of potentially effective interventions early on, to propose and test approaches that can be “scaled up” at the appropriate time (Caburnay et al., 2001);

  • Seek out partnerships with practice agencies (e.g., state and local health departments)

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention contract U48/DP000060 (Prevention Research Centers Program).

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