Qualitative methods are critical for implementation science as they generate opportunities to examine complexity and include a diversity of perspectives. However, it can be a challenge to identify the approach that will provide the best fit for achieving a given set of practice-driven research needs. After all, implementation scientists must find a balance between speed and rigor, reliance on existing frameworks and new discoveries, and inclusion of insider and outsider perspectives. This paper offers guidance on taking a pragmatic approach to analysis, which entails strategically combining and borrowing from established qualitative approaches to meet a study’s needs, typically with guidance from an existing framework and with explicit research and practice change goals.Section 1 offers a series of practical questions to guide the development of a pragmatic analytic approach. These include examining the balance of inductive and deductive procedures, the extent to which insider or outsider perspectives are privileged, study requirements related to data and products that support scientific advancement and practice change, and strategic resource allocation. This is followed by an introduction to three approaches commonly considered for implementation science projects: grounded theory, framework analysis, and interpretive phenomenological analysis, highlighting core analytic procedures that may be borrowed for a pragmatic approach. Section 2 addresses opportunities to ensure and communicate rigor of pragmatic analytic approaches. Section 3 provides an illustrative example from the team’s work, highlighting how a pragmatic analytic approach was designed and executed and the diversity of research and practice products generated.As qualitative inquiry gains prominence in implementation science, it is critical to take advantage of qualitative methods’ diversity and flexibility. This paper furthers the conversation regarding how to strategically mix and match components of established qualitative approaches to meet the analytic needs of implementation science projects, thereby supporting high-impact research and improved opportunities to create practice change.

Participatory approaches to implementation science (IS) offer an inclusive, collaborative, and iterative perspective on implementing and sustaining evidence-based interventions (EBIs) to advance health equity. This review provides guidance on the principles and practice of participatory IS, which enables academic researchers, community members, implementers, and other actors to collaboratively integrate practice-, community-, and research-based evidence into public health and health care services. With a foundational focus on supporting academics in coproducing knowledge and action, participatory IS seeks to improve health, reduce inequity, and create transformational change. The three main sections of this review provide (a) a rationale for participatory approaches to research in implementation science, (b) a framework for integrating participatory approaches in research utilizing IS theory and methods, and (c) critical considerations for optimizing the practice and impact of participatory IS. Ultimately, participatory approaches can move IS activities beyond efforts to make EBIs work within harmful systems toward transformative solutions that reshape these systems to center equity.

Community-based organizations (CBOs) are critical channels for the delivery of health promotion programs. Much of their influence comes from the relationships they have with community members and other key stakeholders and they may be able to harness the power of social media tools to develop and maintain these relationships. There are limited data describing if and how CBOs are using social media. This study assesses the extent to which CBOs engaged in health promotion use popular social media channels, the types of content typically shared, and the extent to which the interactive aspects of social media tools are utilized.

Public health research that addresses chronic disease has historically underutilized and undervalued qualitative methods. This has limited the field's ability to advance ( a) a more in-depth understanding of the factors and processes that shape health behaviors, ( b) contextualized explanations of interventions’ impacts (e.g., why and how something did or did not work for recipients and systems), and ( c) opportunities for building and testing theories. We introduce frameworks and methodological approaches common to qualitative research, discuss how and when to apply them in order to advance health equity, and highlight relevant strengths and challenges. We provide an overview of data collection, sampling, and analysis for qualitative research, and we describe research questions that can be addressed by applying qualitative methods across the continuum of chronic disease research. Finally, we offer recommendations to promote the strategic application of rigorous qualitative methods, with an emphasis on priority areas to enhance health equity across the evidence generation continuum.

Background: The past decade of research has seen theoretical and methodological advances in both implementation science and health equity research, opening a window of opportunity for facilitating and accelerating cross-disciplinary exchanges across these fields that have largely operated in siloes. In 2019 and 2020, the National Cancer Institute’s Consortium for Cancer Implementation Science convened an action group focused on ‘health equity and context’ to identify opportunities to advance implementation science. In this paper, we present a narrative review and synthesis of the relevant literature at the intersection of health equity and implementation science, highlight identified opportunities (i.e., public goods) by the action group for advancing implementation science in cancer prevention and control, and integrate the two by providing key recommendations for future directions. Discussion: In the review and synthesis of the literature, we highlight recent advances in implementation science, relevant to promoting health equity (e.g., theories/models/frameworks, adaptations, implementation strategies, study designs, implementation determinants, and outcomes). We acknowledge the contributions from the broader field of health equity research and discuss opportunities for integration and synergy with implementation science, which include (1) articulating an explicit focus on health equity for conducting and reviewing implementation science; (2) promoting an explicit focus on health equity in the theories, models, and frameworks guiding implementation science; and (3) identifying methods for understanding and documenting influences on the context of implementation that incorporate a focus on equity. Summary: To advance the science of implementation with a focus on health equity, we reflect on the essential groundwork needed to promote bi-directional learning between the fields of implementation science and health equity research and recommend (1) building capacity among researchers and research institutions for health equity-focused and community-engaged implementation science; (2) incorporating health equity considerations across all key implementation focus areas (e.g., adaptations, implementation strategies, study design, determinants, and outcomes); and (3) continuing a focus on transdisciplinary opportunities in health equity research and implementation science. We believe that these recommendations can help advance implementation science by incorporating an explicit focus on health equity in the context of cancer prevention and control and beyond.