Angela Hagaman, Operations Director for East Tennessee State University College of Public Health Addiction Science Center, has published in Implementation Research and Practice. The article is titled, “Perspectives of researchers with lived experience in implementation science research: Opportunities to close the research-to-practice gap in substance use systems of care.”
Camille Cioffi, University of Oregon Prevention Science Institute is lead author of the article. Additional co-authors include members of the Oregon Social Learning Center, University of Kentucky, and Boston University.
Implementation science usually involves and prioritizes community collaboration; however, there are often barriers to community collaboration because the community may not trust researcher intentions or it could be challenging to identify shared language. Researchers who have lived experience with substance use disorders might be able to make community collaborations between researchers and community members easier through shared knowledge of both research and lived experience. The involvement of researchers with lived experience may also help community-based organizations find the best ways to use evidence-based practices.
The authors state, “We are people with substance use disorder, people with loved ones with substance use disorder, and we are implementation science researchers. We hope that our work will help other researchers understand that those identities can be held at the same time and reduce the pressure to live in the shadows for our fellow researchers with lived experience.”
The researchers describe ways that the intentional involvement of researchers with lived experience may improve implementation outcomes and ultimately improve the services received and experiences of community members. Their recommendations include building strong community partnerships, engaging in conversations around effective interventions through knowledge translation, providing community-congruent approaches to evaluation, and aiding in dissemination and sustainability efforts. They also provide recommendations for researchers without lived experience as they intentionally collaborate with researchers with lived experience.