Nurturing Practitioner-Researcher Partnerships to Improve Adoption and Delivery of Research-Based Social and Public Health Services Worldwide

Rogério M. Pinto, Anya Y. Spector and Rahbel Rahman
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Rogério M. Pinto: University of Michigan School of Social Work—Room 2850, 1080 South University, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA
Anya Y. Spector: Stella and Charles Guttman Community College, City University of New York, 50 West 40th Street, New York, NY 10018, USA
Rahbel Rahman: Graduate School of Social Service, Fordham University Room 721-F, 113 West 60th Street, New York, NY 10023, USA

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 5, 1-13

Abstract: Research-based practices—psychosocial, behavioral, and public health interventions—have been demonstrated to be effective and often cost-saving treatments, but they can take up to two decades to reach practitioners within the health and human services workforce worldwide. Practitioners often rely on anecdotal evidence and their “practice wisdom” rather than on research, and may thus unintentionally provide less effective or ineffective services. Worldwide, community engagement in research is recommended, particularly in low-resource contexts. However, practitioner involvement has not been adequately explored in its own right as an innovative community-engaged practice that requires a tailored approach. The involvement of practitioners in research has been shown to improve their use of research-based interventions, and thus the quality of care and client outcomes. Nevertheless, the literature is lacking specificity about when and how (that is, using which tasks and procedures) to nurture and develop practitioner–researcher partnerships. This paper offers theoretical and empirical evidence on practitioner–researcher partnerships as an innovation with potential to enhance each phase of the research cycle and improve services, using data from the United States, Brazil, and Spain. Recommendations for partnership development and sustainability are offered, and a case is made for involving practitioners in research in order to advance social justice by amplifying the local relevance of research, increasing the likelihood of dissemination to community settings, and securing the sustainability of research-based interventions in practice settings.

Keywords: community-engaged research; international participatory research; research to practice; research-based interventions; practitioner–researcher partnership (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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