Mechanisms Network of Expertise: What We Do

Aim 1: To generate research, policy, and practice priorities for a research agenda to
guide the study of implementation mechanisms.
The MNoE will be divided into Strategic Workgroups reflecting major conceptual and
methodological areas: Design & Analysis; Measurement; Strategy→Mechanism→Outcome
linkages; and Causal Theory & Context. The workgroups will attend to gaps, inconsistencies,
and theoretical and methodological issues in their initial brainstorming to yield a matrix
mapping extant knowledge of mechanisms across priority populations based on their
expertise. The MNoE will code presentations at the first conference for the target problem,
EBP, priority population, setting, and implementation strategy (Yr 1) and interview policy and
practice partners regarding their priorities to further populate the matrix (Yr 2). The items
generated from brainstorming, coding, and interviews will seed the concept mapping, which
will identify conceptually distinct categories of research, practice, and policy priorities. The
MNoE will finalize and operationalize these priorities at the 2nd conference to develop an
agenda to advance mechanistic health services implementation research.

Aim 2: To actively disseminate the research agenda to research, policy, and practice
audiences.
The MNoE will deliver plenary sessions and workshops at the 3rd conference (open to the
public) and share recordings via relevant listservs (e.g., Implementation Science News), social
media (e.g., Twitter, ResearchGate), and on the website. We will develop an open access
special issue of a journal targeting our research audience. We will develop plain language
brief reports targeting our policy partners and short videos for our practice audience that will
be reviewed by attendees of the 3rd conference and revised based on their feedback before
disseminating internationally.

This proposal aligns with AHRQ’s goal of promoting implementation mechanisms evaluation
with the potential to close the quality and access gap for priority populations via an
innovative 3-year Deep Dive conference series that interfaces implementation science, health
services research, and health disparities research to inform a research agenda for widespread
dissemination to research, policy, and practice audiences.