Designing for Dissemination and Sustainability to Promote Equitable Impacts on Health

Abstract

Designing for dissemination and sustainability (D4DS) refers to principles and methods for enhancing the fit between a health program, policy, or practice and the context in which it is intended to be adopted. In this article we first summarize the historical context of D4DS and justify the need to shift traditional health research and dissemination practices. We present a diverse literature according to a D4DS organizing schema and describe a variety of dissemination products, design processes and outcomes, and approaches to messaging, packaging, and distribution. D4DS design processes include stakeholder engagement, participatory codesign, and context and situation analysis, and leverage methods and frameworks from dissemination and implementation science, marketing and business, communications and visualarts, and systems science. Finally, we present eight recommendations to adopt a D4DS paradigm, reflecting shifts in ways of thinking, skills and approaches, and infrastructure and systems for training and evaluation.

Keywords: designing for dissemination; designing for sustainability; health equity; impact; knowledge translation; stakeholder engagement.

Figure 1

Designing for dissemination and sustainability (D4DS) organizing schema and logic model. A logic model for D4DS includes conceptualization, design, dissemination, and impact phases. Results of a narrative literature review of D4DS are organized with an emphasis on the design phase and corresponding design processes, products, and outcomes.