Systematic approach to determine goodness of fit for dissemination of the Healthier Families programme
After a thorough evaluation of the quantitative and qualitative data that included both the research team, the local staff at the Parks and Recreation departments, and families with young children who lived in those communities, goodness of fit in the categories of physical, knowledge and social infrastructure could be more easily identified. In three of the sites (Michigan, Georgia, Nevada) there was sufficient alignment to move forward with dissemination. The coding framework guided a qualitative discussion with regards to alignment, with a focus on potential barriers. All sites had potential barriers and challenges; however, the determining factor of alignment was in how sites responded to potential conflicts. For example, in Michigan, Georgia and Nevada, staff presented potential solutions to perceived challenges. In these sites, the staff and community prioritised the mission and vision of Healthier Families. In contrast, while the Florida site had some physical, knowledge and social infrastructure, the focus and priorities of those systems were not fully aligned with the mission of Healthier Families and the identified priority of their community members. This was evident in the response to both survey and interviews, as well as response time to data collection efforts. This systematic approach identified that the Florida site did not have alignment with the programme at the time of the assessment and will be repeated in the future if there is interest.
Implications
We provide a systematic process and application using the CFIR framework to assess community readiness and alignment for dissemination of an evidence- and community-based behavioural intervention for childhood obesity. Using the theoretical underpinnings from the CFIR, our mixed methods approach inductively identified three key domains that should be evaluated as new communities adopt evidence-based obesity interventions, namely the knowledge, physical and social infrastructure. Our experience with this process suggests that a careful pre-implementation evaluation of potential barriers to implementation in these domains is essential for effective implementation and dissemination, with direct input from both Parks and Recreation leaders and community members. As the Parks and Recreation departments who participated sought to address issues identified by the pre-implementation assessment, it became clear that no site had all requisite elements in place. However, our data suggest that the leading measure of compatibility was the social infrastructure, whereby obstacles in the knowledge and physical infrastructures could be overcome by the strength of social resources, including the staff’s ingenuity and commitment to a healthier community. Our findings suggest that future research focusing on the implementation of community-based behavioural interventions for obesity require an analysis of the compatibility of the social infrastructure.
During the course of this process, it became clear that two of the Parks and Recreation departments that initially expressed interest could not participate, providing meaningful insight into what is needed for readiness of implementation and dissemination. In one case (Minnesota), it was due to a lack of available physical infrastructure; in the other (Florida), it was due to the social infrastructure with a lack of aligned priorities between the recreational leaders and the community and the availability of recreation facilitators with time to be trained for programme implementation. In both cases, it necessitated the deferral of implementing the Healthier Families programme.
This study advances the field of dissemination and implementation research by developing and pilot testing a systematic approach prior to disseminating a community- and evidence-based obesity programme, building on a well-established theoretical framework (i.e. CFIR). The majority of behavioural interventions for paediatric obesity do not adequately report elements necessary to assess external validity, including setting level inclusion criteria and representativeness, characteristics regarding intervention staff, implementation/fidelity to the intervention content, or programme sustainability [
15,
16]. By using a dissemination and implementation framework, this study explicitly translates those key measures necessary for assessing external validity into actionable assessments that facilitate the adoption of the intervention in a wide range of social and environmental contexts. Furthermore, our findings are consistent with previously developed conceptual frameworks for applying public health policy in childhood obesity research, recognising both content- and process-related barriers to implementation of efficacious programmes in multiple social contexts [
17]. While little evidence has been generated in the dissemination and implementation of childhood obesity research, there are key similarities between our findings and those reported in adult dissemination and implementation trials for obesity research. For example, Kozica et al. [
18] reported on the successful implementation of a healthy lifestyle programme in rural settings, noting the importance of organisational and local stakeholder involvement and buy-in to the programme. In addition, Damschroder et al. [
19,
20] found that the dissemination of a weight management programme in Veterans Affairs Hospitals was strongly dependent on organisational characteristics, and that, in some situations, local champions could overcome organisational barriers. This is similar to the results from this study, which indicate that the social infrastructure is a critical factor for overcoming potential barriers in either the knowledge or physical infrastructures.
The results and recommendations presented were developed inductively from surveys conducted with Parks and Recreation leaders and key informant interviews of Parks and Recreation leaders and community members. The structure of the survey and interview guides were based on key domains from the CFIR, which allows us to situate our findings in the broader theoretical context of implementation research. The CFIR has been applied to implementation science in a variety of contexts (e.g. healthcare delivery and process re-design, quality improvement, health promotion and disease management) and health outcomes (e.g. mental health, obesity and blood pressure). The CFIR is most commonly applied to gain an in-depth understanding of practitioners’ experiences (e.g. implementation processes, barriers and facilitators to implementation) in innovation implementation [
5]. Previous work has most frequently applied the CFIR to data collection and analysis post implementation [
5]. Our use of the CFIR varied from this typical application in that we used the CFIR framework to evaluate compatibility in a pre-implementation assessment. In this context, we identified the knowledge, physical and social infrastructure as key domains for evaluation, which fit nicely into existing domains from the CFIR. Namely, the outer setting of the CFIR was most consistent with our ‘social infrastructure’, where agreement between community and organisational priorities was a key driver of successful implementation. Other domains from the CFIR were also particularly relevant to this implementation context, including intervention characteristics (i.e. whether the organisational leadership perceived this programme as evidence based), the inner setting (i.e. whether there were adequate knowledge and physical infrastructure to implement the programme), the characteristics of individuals (i.e. how closely community members identified with their local Parks and Recreation department), and the process (i.e. whether there were key opinion leaders in the Parks and Recreation department who could champion the programme). Utilisation of the CFIR in both the pre-implementation assessment and post-implementation measurement would be a next step in dissemination science.
This study had several limitations. Even though this study was conducted in four communities with significant sociodemographic diversity, the small number of communities that participated may mean that the findings are not generalisable to a wide range of community contexts. In particular, Parks and Recreation departments who engaged in this project already demonstrated significant commitment to health in their communities, and were willing to develop strategies to overcome barriers to implementation. For other communities where change is more difficult to achieve, these types of implementation strategies may not be as effective. However, we would posit that interest in adoption is the pre-requisite for effective implementation and dissemination efforts. The sample size at each of the Parks and Recreation centres was also relatively small, though it was reflective of the department. Consequently, it was not possible to determine if theme saturation was achieved during key informant interviews. Finally, all of the participants were selected based on their willingness to participate, which may have led to biased results, whereby individuals were pre-disposed to want this programme to succeed. Consequently, we may not have had access to a wider variability in organisational or community opinions.