Implementation Research in Health: A Practical Guide from the WHO

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This extensive, free guide from the WHO aims to facilitate implementation research for Low and Low-Middle Income countries, by providing a practical overview explaining why implementation reseach is needed and what it is, approaches, methods, and 'how to', and giving practical examples of real-life projects. You can download the guide on the right hand side, or view the information given by the WHO below.

Please  note that this link has been uploaded by the Editorial Team, as displayed above, but the actual authors of the guide itself are: David Peters, Nhan Tran, and Taghreed Adam.

From WHO Website:

On 9th October 2013, the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research, with support from the IRP, launched the publication “Implementation Research in Health: A Practical Guide” at WHO. The event was well-attended, demonstrating the growing interest within WHO in this field of work.   

Dr Marie-Paule Kieny, Assistant Director-General, Health Systems & Innovation at WHO opened the event by highlighting the fact that, “Implementation is often a collective and collaborative endeavor and in many cases it is people working on the front line of health care, whether running specific programmes, or working in health systems, who ask the questions around which it is built”.

This was followed by an overview of the Guide by editor Dr David Peters, Chair, Department of International Health at JHSPH, in which he emphasized the important role implementation research can play in “speaking truth to power” in identifying neglected issues, demonstrating performance, and increasing accountability of health organizations.

 The Implementation Research in Health Guide was created with the aim of boosting implementation research capacity, particularly in LMICs. The Guide highlights the variety of actors who contribute to, and who are impacted by, implementation research – from decision-makers responsible for designing policies and front-line workers who implement these decisions, to researchers who bring expertise in systematically collecting and analysing information to inform implementation questions.