Applying implementation science to infectious disease emergency preparedness and response

Some infectious disease outbreaks present an emergency and a potential disaster scenario. Examples include a new virus similar to or more infectious and deadly than COVID-19 or Ebola, such as the 2025 MERS-like virus. Although good practices for general emergency preparedness and management can be used to plan, there are different and less-known preparations and responses needed for some infectious disease outbreaks and continuing and evolving crises. The objectives of this article are to provide guidance about how to plan and respond to these types of emergencies more effectively by using implementation science knowledge as well as lessons from COVID-19 and other infectious disease emergencies. This narrative review gives guidance for healthcare service delivery leaders at different levels of a healthcare system and easy to understand and use resources for leaders to improve their infectious disease emergency preparedness and operational actions in a disaster scenario. The implementation science guidance covers: interventions, adaptation to context, iteration, coordination for alignment, facilitation, and how to use behavior and organization change models and theories. It also provides researchers with an overview of issues and frameworks to help focus their research designs and data collection to study intervention implementation processes and outcomes for infectious disease outbreaks.