Research with positive impact
The IMPACT Center’s research includes signature projects and pilot studies designed to test and refine IMPACT methods and toolkits — while connecting to communities and pratitioners to understand how best to integrate the youth and family voice.
Signature Projects
Optimizing and increasing the reach of evidence-based practices to improve youth mental health
All IMPACT Center signature projects partner researchers with community collaborators to test and refine novel methods in community-based settings — so that we can amplify the impact of evidence-based practices to improve youth mental health.
Our signature projects tackle three key implementation challenges: identifying and prioritizing determinants, matching strategies to prioritized determinants, optimizing matched strategies for community settings.
Pilot Studies
Creating an incubator for IMPACT methods through our pilot grant program
Pilot studies are a critical part of the IMPACT Center’s work, supporting our aim to train members of the scientific workforce to partner with communities to use IMPACT methods.
Through our pilot projects, we can extend IMPACT’s talent pipeline, test and refine our methods and toolkits, and connect to communities and practice partners to understand how best to support these collaborators to most effectively integrate youth and family perspectives into mental health care.
Using IMPACT Methods to Close the Research to Practice Gap
Measurement development spans the stages of optimization. Researchers and implementers need robust, useful measures of determinants (Stage I), mechanisms (Stage II), and outcomes (Stage III). Project leads are supported by Methods Core faculty in their methods application specific to their project work and offered consultation from a national expert to further build their general implementation science capacity.
Researchers and implementers can begin work in any of IMPACT’s evidence-based intervention implementation stages and move forward or backward depending on their optimization goals.
A linear progression (Stage I→II→III) can be appropriate if researchers or implementers need to clarify critical determinants to select and then test strategies to alter them.
Stages of Optimization
Stage 1
Identify & Prioritize Determinants
Stage 2
Match Strategies
Stage 3
Optimize Strategies
Others may have an effective multicomponent strategy that could be optimized by moving backward to mapping strategy components (Stage II) and then forward to optimization testing of strategy components before large-scale evaluation or use in clinical or community settings (Stage III).
There will be open calls for IMPACT studies, which will engage additional partners and researchers.