A call to action: More collaborative implementation research is needed to prevent chronic disease

Wolfenden, Luke; Hawe, Penelope; Rychetnik, Lucie; Sutherland, Rachel; Barnes, Courtney; Yoong, Serene; Giles‐Corti, Billie; Mitchell, Jo; Bauman, Adrian; Milat, Andrew; Chai, Li Kheng; Mayfield, Sara; Mastersson, Nadia; Freebairn, Louise; Sacks, Gary; Wilson, Andrew; Wright, Annemarie; Wiggers, John

doi:10.1111/1753-6405.13270

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…The CoP also demonstrates the feasibility of collective action, data sharing and knowledge exchange across LHDs consistent with recommended learning health system approaches for prevention. 11 In order for a NSW LHD health promotion CoP to be effective and sustainable, dedicated resources to support the CoP coordination is required, and the health promotion program/s of interest must closely align with the priorities of the LHDs, their communities and NSW MOH. Additionally, integrating the CoP activities within existing networks or leveraging existing infrastructure should be considered to enhance sustainability further.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and piloting of a Community of Practice to support learning and improvement in health promotion practice within NSW local health districts

Barnes,

Sutherland,

Jones

et al. 2023

Public Health Res Pract.

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Objectives: Health Promotion Units within New South Wales (NSW) local health districts (LHDs) frequently collaborate and test innovations to address priority health issues or approaches to support the implementation of a health promotion program in a way that is consistent with the needs, resources, and contexts of their regions. Compatible with learning health system approaches, mechanisms to facilitate the exchange of evidence and expertise across districts could improve the collective impact of health promotion services across the state. This study aimed to assess the use of a health promotion Community of Practice (CoP) model as a strategy to achieve this. Type of program or service:This paper describes and shares experiences from the development and piloting process of a CoP model to develop, evaluate and exchange learnings to improve approaches to support the adoption of an effective healthy lunchbox program ('SWAP IT') across three LHDs. Results:The functioning of the CoP was supported by key activities, funding and infrastructure over a 2-year period, including: planning workshops, implementation check-ins, and knowledge exchange meetings. A particularly novel aspect of the CoP was the harmonised evaluation of different, locally developed strategies to facilitate program adoption across the three LHDs. The alignment of the CoP with local and state priorities, as well as the operation of the CoP in a way that did not impose significant time demands, was seen as important for the sustainability of the CoP.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and piloting of a Community of Practice to support learning and improvement in health promotion practice within NSW local health districts

Barnes,

Sutherland,

Jones

et al. 2023

Public Health Res Pract.

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“…Employing this type of trial design would be a novel transformation from how health promotion programs, and strategies to support their implementation, are conventionally tested. Currently, few trials test the effectiveness of strategies to improve the implementation of such programs, ( 21 ) and those that do often employ different research designs and measures. This impedes cross-study synthesis, and also fails to address the issue of context, with strategies that effectively improve implementation in one context potentially unsuitable or ineffective in another ( 22 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A collaborative network trial to evaluate the effectiveness of implementation strategies to maximize adoption of a school-based healthy lunchbox program: a study protocol

Barnes,

Jones,

Wolfenden

et al. 2024

Front. Public Health

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IntroductionAn important impediment to the large-scale adoption of evidence-based school nutrition interventions is the lack of evidence on effective strategies to implement them. This paper describes the protocol for a “Collaborative Network Trial” to support the simultaneous testing of different strategies undertaken by New South Wales Local Health Districts to facilitate the adoption of an effective school-based healthy lunchbox program (‘SWAP IT’). The primary objective of this study is to assess the effectiveness of different implementation strategies to increase school adoption of the SWAP across New South Wales Local Health Districts.MethodsWithin a Master Protocol framework, a collaborative network trial will be undertaken. Independent randomized controlled trials to test implementation strategies to increase school adoption of SWAP IT within primary schools in 10 different New South Wales Local Health Districts will occur. Schools will be randomly allocated to either the intervention or control condition. Schools allocated to the intervention group will receive a combination of implementation strategies. Across the 10 participating Local Health Districts, six broad strategies were developed and combinations of these strategies will be executed over a 6 month period. In six districts an active comparison group (containing one or more implementation strategies) was selected. The primary outcome of the trial will be adoption of SWAP IT, assessed via electronic registration records captured automatically following online school registration to the program. The primary outcome will be assessed using logistic regression analyses for each trial. Individual participant data component network meta-analysis, under a Bayesian framework, will be used to explore strategy-covariate interactions; to model additive main effects (separate effects for each component of an implementation strategy); two way interactions (synergistic/antagonistic effects of components), and full interactions.DiscussionThe study will provide rigorous evidence of the effects of a variety of implementation strategies, employed in different contexts, on the adoption of a school-based healthy lunchbox program at scale. Importantly, it will also provide evidence as to whether health service-centered, collaborative research models can rapidly generate new knowledge and yield health service improvements.Clinical trial registrationThis trial is registered prospectively with the Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ACTRN12623000558628).

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“…However, the health problems that this research seeks to address are complex challenges with multiple causes and solutions, and there continues to be slow progress in many areas; for example, despite prevention efforts obesity rates continue to rise [ 1 ]. Much of the research literature on chronic disease prevention is still occupied with describing problems [ 2 , 3 ] rather than implementing, evaluating and scaling-up solutions to the level of systems change needed to improve population health [ 4 – 6 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combining public health evidence, policy experience and communications expertise to inform preventive health: reflections on a novel method of knowledge synthesis

Heenan,

Chung,

Howse

et al. 2023

Health Res Policy Sys

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Knowledge synthesis methods help summarize evidence and utilize content expertise to draw out key messages to aid knowledge mobilization and translation. Systems thinking and coproduction can support this by facilitating a multiperspective view and ensuring that knowledge is mobilized and translated in a useful and meaningful way for policy-makers and practitioners. In this paper, we describe the development of a knowledge synthesis approach that utilizes coproduction with policy-makers to combine the findings of a programme of research with policy knowledge to support decision-makers working in chronic disease prevention. The process developed by The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre combined the expertise of research, policy and science communications experts. We reflect on how we used coproduction processes to embed policy-makers as partners in the evidence synthesis process via research-policy dialogues, and embedded science communication into the development and presentation of the findings. This differs from a more common approach of researchers generating evidence for policy with limited input from policy-makers themselves. By collaborating with policy-makers and using coproduction, we can better inform policy-relevant research and generate policy-relevant knowledge. We describe the development of our knowledge synthesis approach using two case studies: the first drawing on a body of work in public health law, and the second on a body of work focused on the first 2000 days of life. We consider how these case studies demonstrate the value of working with policy partners as part of a knowledge synthesis process, and discuss how this process could be adapted and used in future.

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A call to action: More collaborative implementation research is needed to prevent chronic disease

Cited by 8 publications

References 44 publications

Development and piloting of a Community of Practice to support learning and improvement in health promotion practice within NSW local health districts

Development and piloting of a Community of Practice to support learning and improvement in health promotion practice within NSW local health districts

A collaborative network trial to evaluate the effectiveness of implementation strategies to maximize adoption of a school-based healthy lunchbox program: a study protocol

Combining public health evidence, policy experience and communications expertise to inform preventive health: reflections on a novel method of knowledge synthesis

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