Topic Area 4: Implementation research

Implementation (formerly translation) research (IR) is the study of methods to promote the adoption and integration of evidence-based occupational safety and health (OSH) practices, interventions, and policies into routine workplace settings to improve worker health and well-being. This type of research has received increased attention in the OSH field and has become increasingly important for NIOSH, as interested parties call for greater evidence of the positive and sustained impact of OSH research. IR approaches are uniquely suited to moving research outputs (such as evidence-based interventions) into use by employers and workers. IR strategies are also useful for capturing and characterizing the IOs of OSH interventions, as well as the key factors that influence whether an intervention is adopted, adapted, implemented, and institutionalized. Efforts to increase and enhance the use of IR approaches at NIOSH have been underway since 2016. However, a shared understanding of the concept is lacking within the Institute, and very few projects and programs have explicitly incorporated IR methodologies.

NIOSH began discussing what it first termed, translation research in OSH in 2010, following critical reviews by the National Academies of Science as well as calls within the OSH community to increase efforts to investigate factors that enhance and limit the development, transfer, and use of OSH information and technology. Initial thinking was captured in the NIOSH Research Roadmap (2016), built on the widely cited National Institutes of Health (NIH) 4-phase bench-to-bedside model, along with other clinical and public health models. The roadmap called for formation of the NIOSH Translation Research Core and Specialty Program as well as promotion of the concept more widely. A key journal article published in 2017 [Schulte et al.] offered a definition and framework of translation research for OSH, and subsequent journal articles aimed to disentangle overlapping terminology and concepts used in the multiple disciplines involved in dissemination and implementation (D&I) science, translation research for OSH, and Research to Practice (r2p).

Much of the initial presentation of translation research at NIOSH has focused on the four-stage framework included in the NIOSH roadmap, which parallels the full continuum of research from problem identification to testing and of the intervention in controlled and real-world settings to positive and sustained impact on worker health and well-being. However, we recognize that there is a need for focused attention on research that addresses the latter stages of the continuum, but with all of the overlapping concepts and terminology, should NIOSH still call it translation research? How can and should the concepts be applied at NIOSH?  With these questions in mind, the Institute conducted a literature review and an environmental scan to gather more background information from the wider implementation science field and OSH, as well as, learning more about the way in which other institutions (such as the National Institutes of Health and the Veterans Health Administration) are operating in this sphere. As a result, in 2022, the Institute decided to begin using the term implementation research as opposed to translation research.

Next, a workgroup of IR interested researchers and r2p representatives used this and other data points to refine NIOSH’s current definition and understanding of translation research into one that better reflects that of the wider implementation science field. The definition and other materials that have resulted from this work will then be shared with NIOSH division/laboratories/offices (DLO) staff for feedback and further refinement.

Finally, NIOSH will attempt to identify existing implementation research tools and models/frameworks that it may tailor for application by researchers in the OSH community. This will be informed by the feedback process in the previous step. Subsequently, the materials will be evaluated with interested internal and external partners and research collaborators.

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