Expanding the Reach of Psychological Science Through Implementation Science: Introduction to the Special Issue

Implementation science is the study of methods to promote the systematic uptake of effective practices into routine care settings with the broad goal of ensuring that scientific discoveries realize their potential and improve people's lives. As a field, implementation science includes three primary foci: (a) understanding the context in which individuals will implement practices that have a strong, established evidence base; (b) developing implementation approaches that target the factors that may accelerate or hinder implementation; and (c) conducting pragmatic trials to test these implementation approaches. Psychological science has contributed substantially to the knowledge and methods used in implementation science. In medicine and public health, these contributions have been leveraged to facilitate the uptake of screening and prevention programs, hand hygiene to reduce infection transmission, and many medical innovations. In behavioral health settings, implementation science has often focused on specific forms of psychotherapy, with emphasis on the evidence-based psychological practices that are highlighted in treatment guidelines. This article provides an overview of the field, with an emphasis on the bidirectional relationship between implementation science, and psychological science, illustrated through the articles in this special issue of the American Psychologist. It concludes with recommendations for future research at the intersection of implementation science and psychological science.