The History and Evolution of Dissemination & Implementation Science

James W. Dearing, Michigan State University

This presentation will describe how early work in the diffusion of innovations influenced contemporary work in dissemination and implementation science.  A focus of this discussion will concern organizational research issues.

Jim Dearing (Ph.D., University of Southern California) is Brandt Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at Michigan State University.  Dearing studies the diffusion of innovations, including the adoption and implementation of new evidence-based practices, programs, technologies and policies.  His research and teaching spans dissemination science, implementation science, program sustainability, and the psychological and sociological basis of the diffusion process.  He works with research and practice improvement teams in environmental remediation, nursing care, water conservation, injury and fatality prevention, public health, and healthcare.  He has been principal investigator for research grants from federal agencies including NSF, EPA, NCI, AHQR, and private foundations including The Wallace Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Currently he is PI for a study concerning innovations that promise both public health and climate change mitigation outcomes, and co-PI for a study about the implementation of Project ECHO which uses telecommunication to link medical specialists with primary care providers, both projects funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Dissemination & Implementation Science: Explained & Emerging

The Series will feature leading scholars in the areas of dissemination and implementation science, who will engage seminar participants in discussions around a variety of topics including: differentiating dissemination and implementation science and situating them within the broader KT domain; what is knowledge and approaches to its generation; the history and evolution of dissemination and implementation science; dominant and promising theory and frameworks for DIS; research approaches, methods and methodological challenges in implementation science; de-implementation and other thorny implementation issues; network perspectives on D&I; sustainability research; and contemporary research on scale up & scale out.