Julie Bobitt, PhD, guest edited a special issue of Public Policy & Aging Report, “Implementation Science: A Critical Tool for Research Utilization and Policy Evaluation.”
Published in February 2022, articles in this special issue in which the articles discuss how implementation science can and has informed the implementation of aging-related evidence-based practices (EBPs) in a variety of settings.
A number of this issue’s contributors discuss their experiences implementing aging-related EBPs in different health-care settings, including nursing homes, hospitals, and the Veterans Administration (VA) health system. Moving from how EBPs can inform policy development, articles discuss how implementation science can be used to evaluate and improve policy implementation in terms of uptake and spread, as well as improving programmatic outcomes. Other articles describe the implementation process not from a research perspective, but from that of implementation practitioners and how the conceptual framework of the National Institute of Health Stage Model for behavioral intervention development relates to and emphasizes implementation.