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Choosing the Right Method for Your Implementation Science Question
Implementation science employs a variety of research methods, from social marketing to analyzing routine surveillance data.
Methods are chosen based on the specific research questions and goals, ensuring that the data collected is relevant and robust, ultimately contributing to the advancement of knowledge. Social marketing uses marketing principles to influence behaviors that benefit individuals and communities, aiming to promote the adoption of effective interventions. Economic evaluation assesses the cost-effectiveness of these interventions, helping to determine their financial viability and impact on resource allocation. Operations research applies mathematical and analytical techniques to optimize processes and decision-making in implementation efforts. Surveillance and data systems involve the systematic collection, analysis, and interpretation of data to monitor and evaluate the progress and outcomes of implementation activities.
Choosing the method best suited to your research questions is crucial because it ensures that the data collected is relevant and robust, allowing for accurate and meaningful conclusions. The right method aligns with the specific goals of your study, whether it’s understanding the nuances of implementation in different contexts or evaluating the impact of an intervention. This alignment enhances the validity and reliability of your findings, ultimately contributing to the advancement of knowledge.
Below, you can explore our archive by research method to see examples of each across a range of journals. Open access articles are marked with the ✪ symbol.
Organizational assessment involves evaluation of an organization’s readiness and capacity to implement evidence-based practices. This process helps identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas needing improvement to ensure successful implementation.
Browse the articles below to see how UW researchers are using organizational assessment across contexts.
Rapid evidence synthesis is used to summarize and synthesize research literature and can be applied to synthesizing evidence on known determinants for implementing evidence-based interventions. To learn more, visit ImpSciMethods.org.
Browse the articles below to see how UW researchers are using rapid evidence synthesis across contexts.
✪ Study protocol: Novel Methods for Implementing Measurement-Based Care with youth in Low-Resource Environments (NIMBLE)
Stakeholder and policy analysis is the intentional integration of stakeholder (individuals or groups who have an interest in a particular policy or program) perspectives and feedback in the analysis of policy advisability, execution and impact.
Browse the articles below to see how UW researchers are using stakeholder and policy analysis across contexts.
✪ Using policy codesign to achieve multi-sector alignment in adolescent behavioral health: a study protocol
✪ Mending the gap: Measurement needs to address policy implementation through a health equity lens
Operations Research is the use of qualitative or quantitative models to facilitate decision-making in complex implementation, particularly relating to structure, prospective evaluation, and reconfiguration.
Browse the articles below to see how UW researchers are using operations research across contexts.
Measuring health systems strength and its impact: experiences from the African Health Initiative
✪ Stepped-Wedge Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial to Promote Option B+ Retention in Central Mozambique
Economic evaluation involves comparing the costs and benefits of different courses of action. Specifically, this involves understanding the costs associated with evidence-based practices (such as interventions, policies, programs, and tools) and the efforts required to deliver and sustain them.
Browse the articles below to see how UW researchers are using economic evaluation across contexts.
✪ Enhancing the Impact of Implementation Strategies in Healthcare: A Research Agenda
An impact evaluation looks at how the intervention or implementation affects relevant outcomes, intended or otherwise, and typically includes evidence of how outcomes would or would not differ in the absence of the intervention or implementation.
Browse the articles below to see how UW researchers are using impact evaluation across contexts.
✪ Providing HIV-assisted partner services to partners of partners in western Kenya: an implementation science study
✪ Participatory logic modeling in a multi-site initiative to advance implementation science
Realist evaluation in times of decolonising global health
Rapid ethnographic assessment is used to efficiently gather ethnographic data about determinants by seeking to understand the people, tasks, and environments involved from stakeholder perspectives. Ethnographic data is qualitative information collected through ethnographic research, which involves immersing oneself in a particular community or group to observe and document their behaviors, beliefs, social interactions, and cultural practices. To learn more, visit ImpSciMethods.org.
Browse the articles below to see how UW researchers are using rapid ethnographic assessment across contexts.
✪ Study protocol: Novel Methods for Implementing Measurement-Based Care with youth in Low-Resource Environments (NIMBLE)
Rapid Assessment Procedure Informed Clinical Ethnography (RAPICE) in Pragmatic Clinical Trials of Mental Health Services Implementation: Methods and Applied Case Study
Social marketing involves applying marketing principles to influence behaviors that benefit individuals and communities for the greater social good. This approach is used to design, implement, and evaluate programs aimed at promoting the adoption of evidence-based practices and interventions. Social marketing strategies often include audience segmentation, targeted messaging, and the use of various communication channels to reach and engage specific groups.
Browse the articles below to see how UW researchers are using social marketing across contexts.
✪ Implementation Science to Respond to the COVID-19 Pandemic
Use of the Fogg Behavior Model to Assess the Impact of a Social Marketing Campaign on Condom Use in Pakistan
Causal pathway diagrams are a graphical tool that enables visualization of how implementation strategies bring about implementation outcomes and the conditions under which they work. To learn more, visit ImpSciMethods.org.
Browse the articles below to see how UW researchers are using causal pathway diagramming across contexts.
✪ Getting cozy with causality: Advances to the causal pathway diagramming method to enhance implementation precision
✪ Study protocol: Novel Methods for Implementing Measurement-Based Care with youth in Low-Resource Environments (NIMBLE)
Qualitative health systems research uses methods of observation and interviewing to evaluate health systems through the lens of those who experience them, and to explain factors that shape outcomes, dimensions of care, as well as the social and political determinants of health.
Browse the articles below to see how UW researchers are conducting qualitative health systems research across contexts.
Dissemination research involves the targeted distribution of information and intervention materials to a specific public health or clinical practice audience.
Browse the articles below to see how UW researchers are conducting dissemination research across contexts.
✪ Dissemination Science in School Mental Health: A Framework for Future Research
Routine surveillance data from control and experimental groups can be used illustrate the performance or impact of new policies and programs in an environment, capture real-time feedback, guide resource allocation, and systematically capture implementation processes.
Browse the articles below to see how UW researchers are utilizing routine surveillance and data systems across contexts.
Feasibility and acceptability of an iris biometric system for unique patient identification in routine HIV services in Kenya
Prioritizing implementation barriers is a process that enables teams to determine which implementation barriers are most important to address to support evidence-based intervention implementation. To learn more, visit ImpSciMethods.org.
Browse the articles below to see how UW researchers are prioritizing implementation barriers across contexts.