Abstract for: Designing Public Health Dissemination and Delivery Systems

There is increasing recognition in public health that achieving population level impact from even the successful translation of basic research to effective interventions is inherently challenging. Only a small percentage of initial interventions ever get implemented and of those very few do so at scale. A number of efforts have sought to reduce the research-practice gap in public health. This paper adds a promising tool to this endeavor by introducing the use of system dynamics for the design of public health dissemination and delivery (D&D) systems. We do so through two case studies. The first shows the role that system dynamics played in assessing the relative impact of different designs for a D&D system, while the second shows how system dynamics was used to help develop a conceptual framework of factors influencing the performance of a D&D system. Together, both projects highlight the contributions that relatively simple models can make in dissemination science and practice through the design, testing, and evaluation of public health D&D systems.