Dissemination and Implementation Science - Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis

Supporting data equity in the social sector

Roger — Mon, 18 May 2026 19:40:53 +0000

A new paper published in the Harvard Data Science Review outlines complementary models for rethinking how data is used in the social sector, emphasizing that technical expertise alone is not enough to ensure fair and effective outcomes. The paper, “Learning Models and Modalities to Build Data Equity Competencies,” argues that everyone is a data person, regardless of one’s role or title, and makes the case that centering community input, ethical decision-making and collaboration is essential for equitable and effective social sector data practice. Drawing on the work of Data for Social Impact (DSI) initiative at WashU and Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy (AISP) at the University of Pennsylvania, the authors show how equity-focused, nontechnical training programs can help practitioners better understand how data practices impact...

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Brown School training program funding renewed, continues decades of work

Natasha — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 16:00:07 +0000

A Brown School training program that helps educate and support mental health researchers and scholars will mark 35 years of continuous funding at the end of its latest grant extension. The Brown School training program in mental health services research has received a five-year $2.4 million grant extension from the National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), building on 30 years of sustained federal support. “Our goal is to prepare trainees with the knowledge and skills to meet the most pressing needs in social work and mental health services,” said Leopoldo Cabassa, a professor and co-principal investigator on the grant. “This work is especially vital as many of these services face ongoing funding challenges.”...

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Powell discusses past, future of implementation science in PNAS article

Natasha — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 11:00:00 +0000

Byron Powell, a leading scholar in the field of implementation science and an associate professor in the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, is featured in a newly published article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer-reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences. In the piece, Powell reflects on the rapid growth of implementation science and outlines its future directions. Implementation science, the study of how evidence-based practices are integrated into routine practice, has grown significantly over the past two decades. Once considered a niche area, it now plays a central role in improving healthcare delivery and public health outcomes. The article highlights several key milestones in the field’s evolution, including a 2015 project led...

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Local collaboration key to effective evidence-based training, study finds

Mon, 16 Sep 2024 14:27:59 +0000

Collaborating with public health departments and other agencies to deliver training in evidence-based public health can offset the effects of high staff turnover, strengthen academic-practice relationships, and promote population-wide health and health equity, found a new study led by Stephanie Mazzucca-Ragan, assistant professor at the Brown School. Training in evidence-based public health (EBPH) has been available since 1997, but challenging due to recent high turnover in public-health agencies, in which few staff hold a public health degree. Mazzucca-Ragan and a team at the Prevention Research Center (PRC) tested the effectiveness of training collaboratively among other PRCs, local and state health departments, and Public Health Training Centers, at four U.S. sites. They then surveyed 241 course participants to self-rate their skills,...

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Study offers strategies to ensure equitable access to digital health tools

Tue, 10 Sep 2024 18:05:37 +0000

As digital health tools grow in popularity due to rapid technological advancements and the shift toward personalized medicine, a new study highlights the critical need to focus on equity in their design. Today’s digital health tools are transforming care: wearable devices offer continuous monitoring and early warnings; telemedicine provides virtual consultations, especially in underserved areas; artificial intelligence-driven interventions support mental health where stigma or access is an issue; and community-based platforms link users to local resources such as food, housing and transportation. Integrated with electronic health records, these tools are becoming more advanced, promising to improve outcomes, streamline care and close health gaps. The study’s senior author, Maura Kepper, an assistant professor within the Prevention Research Center at the Brown School at Washington University...

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Effectively Communicating with Local Policymakers �� Health Policy

Thu, 13 Jun 2024 16:35:51 +0000

Clear policy briefs and local data are key to communicating with policymakers, according to a recent paper co-authored by Elizabeth Dodson, research assistant professor at the Prevention Research Center (PRC) at the Brown School. Dodson and colleagues on the research team distributed surveys with different versions of policy briefs about obesity to local policymakers on a national panel, asking about their impressions, their likelihood of using the brief and how they determine legislative priorities. Nearly all of the 331 respondents said local data, constituent needs/opinions, and cost-effectiveness data were important or very important to determining what issues they work on. An infographic about the study is available on the PRC website. “We know that evidence-based policies can be an effective...

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Filling the Gap: Training the Workforce in Evidence-Based Public Health

Mon, 08 Apr 2024 16:30:28 +0000

For more than two decades, the Prevention Research Center (PRC) at Washington University has been training public-health practitioners from around the world in Evidence-Based Public Health, showing them how to develop programs and policies for communities based on local preferences and proven solutions to public health problems. In its most recent training at the university’s Knight Center in March, the PRC team welcomed 28 participants from six state health departments and the Federated States of Micronesia. “Less than 20 percent of public health employees have a degree in public health,” said Ross Brownson, Director of the PRC and the Steven H. and Susan U. Lipstein Distinguished Professor at the Brown School. “Our course, a partnership with the National Association of...

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Study Looks at Ways to Sustain Public Health Programs

Roger — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 15:26:06 +0000

State tobacco control programs that used a new training model were better able to sustain operations, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. The study, titled “Action planning for building public health program sustainability: results from a group-randomized trial,” was published this month in the journal Implementation Science. “This is the first study to test a training model designed to increase sustainability of public health programs,” said Sarah Moreland-Russell, an associate professor of practice and the study’s first author. The training was most beneficial for programs that had made less progress in implementing tobacco control policy, researchers found, implying that tailored training may be most appropriate for struggling programs. “Public health impact can only...

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More Work Needed to Improve Equity Focus in Public Health Departments

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 18:12:00 +0000

A new study by researchers at the Prevention Research Center at Washington University in St. Louis and the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors (NACDD) surveyed public health departments in the U.S. to understand current health equity-related work practices and identify ways to bolster equity-focused work in chronic disease prevention and control efforts. Recently published in the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, the study identifies areas of progress on equity, gaps in practice, and where to target technical assistance, capacity building efforts, and accreditation planning. The study is among the first on the important subject of health equity in public health practice. “There is an urgency in addressing health equity and our data suggest considerable room for enhancing health equity practices in state and territorial...

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Brownson, Proctor Edit Third Edition of Health Research Guide

Natasha — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 18:53:18 +0000

Brown School faculty members Ross Brownson and Enola Proctor, and Graham Colditz of the School of Medicine have published the third edition of “Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health,” the ultimate guide to dissemination and implementation research for public health, medicine and the social sciences. Their work has been updated in this third edition with a strong focus on health equity and new chapters on de-implementation, scale-up and sustainment, and training and capacity building. This new edition also focuses on barriers to uptake of evidence-based interventions in the communities where people live their lives and from the social service agencies, hospitals, and clinics where they receive care. Read more about the book on the WashU Bookshelf website.

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NIH Awards McKay $3.35 Million to Test Sustainability of Cancer-Treatment Tool for Children in Latin America

Mon, 12 Jun 2023 20:21:15 +0000

Virginia McKay, research assistant professor at the Brown School, is leading a five-year, $3.35 million project to test the sustainability of an effort to improve cancer treatment for children in Latin America. A partnership with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, the new research is a massive expansion of a pilot project enabled by a grant from the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), for early career investigators. The funding is split between McKay and Asya Agulnik, associate member of the St. Jude faculty and Director of the Global Critical Care Program at St. Jude Global. The award makes the project eligible for two additional years of funding. “This grant is an exciting opportunity to develop strategies...

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Brown School Co-hosts Meeting Focused on Improving Diversity in Scientific Publishing

Natasha — Mon, 01 May 2023 20:58:26 +0000

Editors from some of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world recently convened at Washington University to explore diversity, equity, and inclusion in scientific publishing. Co-hosted by the Brown School and the American Journal of Public Health and sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the meeting drew nearly 30 editors from publications including JAMA, Nature, PLoS ONE, and The Lancet. The group met to discuss ways to improve racial equity in editorial practices. To that end, they reviewed literature and collected data in order to identify the metrics, pathways, and practices that could be incorporated to create guidelines for the scientific publication process. “We are brainstorming what each journal is doing and what we can do together,” explained Rodrigo...

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Brown School Study Uses AI to Analyze Social Media Attitudes �� Soda Taxes

Natasha — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 20:48:00 +0000

Researchers at the Brown School used artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze hundreds of thousands of tweets to assess people’s attitudes toward soda taxes. Results were published recently in the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice. The study was led by Ruopeng An, associate professor at the Brown School, who said the research demonstrated the value of AI technologies in analyzing large quantities of data. His team designed a comprehensive search algorithm to systematically identify soda-tax-related tweets. “AI enables computer modeling that is useful in analyzing ‘big’ data that is massive in scale and messy to work with, such as images or unstructured texts like those in tweets,” he said. An’s team identified and collected around 370,000 soda tax-related tweets posted between...

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How Health Departments Can Offer More Programs That Work

Mon, 13 Mar 2023 20:41:59 +0000

As public health departments across the U.S. face increased scrutiny, the Brown School’s Prevention Research Center has partnered with the Brookings Institution in a groundbreaking investigation to identify ways to improve decision-making and more effectively use health department resources. The study’s latest findings, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, used information from public health practice and computer modeling to test how various factors influence health department decisions about their programs. At issue is “misimplementation” – the premature ending of effective activities or the continuation of ineffective programs, which waste resources and result in worse health outcomes. “It is an extremely important study because up to one-third of public health programs are ended when they should continue or continue when they should have ended,” said Ross...

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Reis Hosts Lancet Project Meeting on Climate Change, Physical Activity, and Planetary Health

Natasha — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 21:26:00 +0000

Professor Rodrigo Reis (center) in discussions with public health scholars during a writing retreat held on WashU’s campus from January 31 – February 2, 2023. Rodrigo Reis, professor of public health and interim co-dean of the Brown School recently led a three-day writing retreat for public health scholars as part of The Lancet series on physical activity and public health. The group met at the Brown School for three days to design methods and develop the next steps on a research project to explore connections between physical activity, climate change adaptation, and mitigation through a planetary health lens. This initial meeting was sponsored and organized by the People, Health & Place Unit directed by Reis who is located with the Prevention Research Center....

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