Building D&I Capacity Around the Globe: A Review of D&I Centers and Programs

CLARE VIGLIONE
University of California San Diego

Research programs focused on dissemination and implementation science (D&I) training, mentorship, and capacity building have proliferated in recent years. There has yet to be a comprehensive inventory of D&I initiatives cataloguing information about activities, infrastructure, and priorities. Further, there is a need to explore areas of overlap and redundancy across programs as well as opportunities for shared resources, collaboration, and growth. This study seeks to identify and describe existing D&I programs and build a compendium of strategies to boost discrete D&I capacity building efforts.

National and international D&I programs.

Our systematic, multimethod search process to identify D&I programs includes two phases. Phase 1 involved: 1) a targeted review of CTSA programs and NIH Reporter awarded programs (e.g., NIMH P50 Centers) as well as expert recommendations of D&I programs; 2) systematic screening of program websites for D&I relevance; and 3) distribution of a D&I Capacity Building Survey (n=33) to PIs or administrators of identified programs to characterize infrastructure and activities using domains from the Brownson et al. D&I Capacity Building model. Phase 2 will include further program identification and qualitative data collection: 1) an advanced algorithmic Google search with D&I terms, 2) screening for relevance and saturation by independent reviewers, and 3) interviews to examine outcomes and impact domains from the D&I Capacity Building model.

The phase 1 search yielded 140 programs. We excluded 106 because they either did not have a D&I component or were duplicates. The final total from phase 1 included 33 D&I programs. 28 (85%) of the 33 identified are affiliated with a US institution and of these, 18 (55%) are embedded within a CTSA. Five programs (15%) are internationally based. 12 (36%) completed the D&I Capacity Building Survey. The majority surveyed reported having an academic affiliation (n=10, 83%) and offered several D&I capacity building activities including D&I Training and Education (n=9, 75%), Mentorship (n=9, 75%), Consultation (n=9, 75%), and Grant Development services (n=9, 75%). About half (n=7, 58%) reported provision of D&I Technical Assistance, Resources and Tools, and Professional Networking opportunities.

Programs identified offer a similar set of D&I training services, highlighting prioritized and feasible capacity-building activities. After phase 2, we will summarize program characteristics, highlight overlap, and propose priority areas to boost D&I capacity building endeavors. We will also recommend shared measures to evaluate success (e.g., number of outputs, revenue generated). To our knowledge, this is the first mixed-methods study to catalogue existing D&I programs and synthesize learnings across programs into a set of priorities and sustainment strategies to support D&I capacity building efforts domestically and globally.