EUSPR Conference And Members’ Meeting 2018

Translating research findings into prevention policy and practice remains a challenge, and despite the development of strategies to improve uptake, there is frequently a gap between research evidence and what is delivered. This wastes public resources, and means that target groups are unable to receive those interventions and other types of support that might be of most benefit to them. Reviews of evidence translation strategies have concluded that whilst passive approaches such as simply publishing research evidence are useful in raising awareness of effective prevention actions, these are ineffective in changing actual practice, and unlikely to result in improvements in outcomes for target groups. The uptake of research in practice is often related to the complexity of those research findings and ‘trialability’ in different contexts, whereby those findings that are difficult to implement, and cannot be tried out and evaluated at a local level are most likely to be ignored.

These gaps may be due to such factors as the complex realities and pressures of practice, the dynamics of the socio-political environments into which interventions will be delivered and sustained, the likely costs of affecting necessary changes in practice, or simply the failure of prevention researchers to produce evidence that is useful and relevant to these realities. Researchers and other producers of evidence need to move away from passive dissemination activities towards actions that acknowledge the importance of reciprocity between researchers, practitioners, policy makers, and target groups.

At EUSPR participants will begin to address some of these challenges, and to offer some suggestions for ways forward. The keynote speakers will explore some of the big questions in implementation and translational science, as well as providing focus on those strategies that have been successful in bringing together different members of the prevention community. A special focus of the conference will be the use of new technologies in this process, and how these might not only offer new opportunities for delivery of evidence based interventions and programmes, but also provide a platform for better engagement across different sectors. 

For more information, visit the conference website.