Applied Implementation Research in Public Health

Catalog description

Public health interventions often demonstrate strong evidence in controlled or ideal circumstances—yet struggle to achieve the same impact in everyday practice. Implementation science (IS) investigates how to promote the systematic adoption, delivery, adaptation, and sustainment of evidence-based practices (EBPs) in real-world environments. This course immerses students in applied implementation research, with a strong emphasis on identifying implementation gaps, understanding multilevel determinants, applying theories, models, and frameworks (TMFs), designing implementation strategies, engaging stakeholders, balancing fidelity and adaptation, selecting hybrid study designs, measuring implementation outcomes, and developing robust and feasible implementation research plans. Students will apply TMFs such as CFIR, RE-AIM, EPIS, and the Implementation Research Logic Model (IRLM) to real-world case studies in violence prevention, chronic disease management, school-based mental health, maternal health, overdose prevention, and community health programming. The course is highly applied and structured so that students iteratively build a complete implementation research proposal grounded in a real public health problem.