The prevalence of many behavioral health and related problems have increased over the last decade, even in the face of a growing knowledge and evidence base. Many different programs, policies, and practices have been shown to prevent such problems, but very few have been implemented at the scale needed to impact population health. This talk will present results from three studies that illustrate how approaches and frameworks from dissemination and implementation science can advance our understanding of evidence-based prevention program scale-up.
About the Presenter:
Brittany is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Development at Washington State University, where she is the Youth and Family Extension Specialist, Director of the Prevention Science Graduate Program, and Co-Lead of the IMproving Prevention through ACTion (IMPACT) Research Lab. She earned her Ph. D. and M.S. in Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State. Her research is focused on Youth, family, and community exposure to risks that can impede healthy development and prevent them from attaining their full potential. Research has demonstrated that prevention programs, which target those risks, can improve outcomes, yet there still remains a significant gap between the science and practice of prevention in community settings. She aims to close this gap through: 1) basic research using an innovative, person-centered methodological framework to understand how risk and protective factors interact to predict later health outcomes, and 2) applied translational research aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of preventive interventions and understanding the facilitators and barriers to their successful implementation and sustainability in community settings.
