Cross-cutting lessons from the Decision-Maker Led Implementation Research initiative.

Area of Science:

• Implementation Science
• Health Policy Research
• Vaccine Implementation Strategies

Background:

• Millions of children miss essential vaccines annually, primarily in low- and middle-income countries.
• Implementation research is vital for strengthening effective health interventions.
• Engaging decision-makers as Principal Investigators is a strategy to embed research into policy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe cross-cutting lessons from the "Decision-Maker Led Implementation Research" initiative.
• To understand and develop future use of the decision-maker led research strategy.
• To strengthen the implementation of proven-effective interventions, such as immunization.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative data collection including document review and in-depth interviews.
• Thematic content analysis of extracted documents.
• Analysis summarized results across 11 participating projects from the initiative.

Main Results:

• Seven enablers and five barriers to conducting decision-maker led research were identified.
• Key enablers included research relevance, acceptability, and integration.
• Key barriers included unclear results, limited planning/support, and the limited role of single studies.

Conclusions:

• Decision-maker led research is a promising strategy for embedding research into decision-making processes.
• This approach can increase research utilization to strengthen the implementation of interventions like immunization.
• Lessons learned can inform the future design and application of this research strategy.