Collaborative Transdisciplinary Research in a Small Institution: Challenges and Opportunities

Essential elements to "design for dissemination" within a research network-a modified Delphi study of the Community-Academic Aging Research Network (CAARN)

Background

The Community-Academic Aging Research Network (CAARN) was developed in 2010 to build partnerships, facilitate research, and ultimately accelerate the pace of development, testing, and dissemination of evidence-based programs related to healthy aging. CAARN has facilitated development and testing of 32 interventions, two of which are being packaged for scale-up, and three of which are being scaled up nationally by non-profit organizations. The purpose of this study is to describe CAARN’s essential elements required to replicate its success in designing for dissemination.

Methods

We conducted a modified Delphi technique with 31 participants who represented CAARN’s organization (staff and Executive Committee) and academic and community partners. Participants received three rounds of a web-based survey to rate and provide feedback about the importance of a list of potential key elements compiled by the authors. The criterion for establishing consensus was 80% of responses to consider the element to be extremely or very important.

Results

Response rate was 90% in Round 1, 82% in Round 2, and 87% in Round 3. A total of 115 items were included across rounds. Overall, consensus was achieved in 77 (67%) elements: 8 of 11 elements about academic partners, 8 of 11 about community partners, 29 of 49 about the role of the community research associate, 16 of 21 about the role of the director, 9 of 17 about the purveyor (i.e., the organization that scales up an intervention with fidelity), and 7 of 7 about the overall characteristics of the network.

Conclusions

The development of evidence-based programs designed for dissemination requires the involvement of community partners, the presence of a liaison that facilitates communications among academic and community stakeholders and a purveyor, and the presence of a pathway to dissemination through a relationship with a purveyor. This study delineates essential elements that meet the priorities of adopters, implementers, and end-users and provide the necessary support to community and academic partners to develop and test interventions with those priorities in mind. Replication of these key elements of the CAARN model may facilitate quicker development, testing, and subsequent dissemination of evidence-based programs that are feasible to implement by community organizations.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s43058-021-00122-z.

[DEVELOPING SPACES FOR MULTIDISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION IN SCHOOLS: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES]

The main objective of this manuscript is to document our experience collaborating with professionals from various disciplines through different research projects in school and university settings, while focusing on the welfare of the school population we serve. First, we elaborate on the different projects that have served to foster this multidisciplinary collaboration. Second, we highlight the fundamental role the school social workers have played serving as links between researchers and the school community. In addition, we highlight the need to have school psychologists in the schools that make up Puerto Rico's public education system. Finally, we discuss the challenges and opportunities that this multidisciplinary effort has entailed.