Natasha Ludwig-Barron, PhD, MPH

Dr. Ludwig-Barron is a Chicana/Mexican-American epidemiologist and assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), Department of Medicine, Division of Prevention Science. She brings more than 15-years of public health research and practice experience applying mixed methods and ecological approaches to understanding the co-occurring epidemics of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, substance use, and gender…

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Ximena Levander MD, MCR

Dr. Levander (She/Her/Ella) is an assistant professor of medicine and an addiction medicine clinician researcher at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in Portland, Oregon. She is inspired by her clinical work in both inpatient and outpatient settings to improve care for and reduce harms related to substance use amongst women who use drugs, particularly…

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Will Garneau MD, MPH

Dr. Garneau is an assistant professor of medicine and hospitalist at Johns Hopkins Hospital. His work is focused on improving care for hospitalized patients with substance use disorders, particularly managing opioid dependence and prompt treatment of withdrawal to reduce patient-directed discharges. He received an NIH KL2 mentored career development award in 2023 and uses real-world…

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Rachel French PhD, MSHP, RN

Dr. French is an assistant professor in the Department of Family and Community Health at Penn Nursing. With a background as a registered nurse in a federally qualified health center providing opioid use disorder treatment, Dr. French witnessed firsthand how community-based care for opioid use disorder is often disrupted when patients are hospitalized. This experience…

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Integrating Implementation Outcomes into Effectiveness Studies: A Practical Guide for Clinical Interventionists

Designing effectiveness studies with implementation in mind can allow interventionists to translate their research into real-world practice. Implementation outcomes measure how much and how well a particular intervention was implemented and can provide valuable insights into any heterogeneity in effectiveness outcomes. As part of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Helping to End Addiction Long-term®…

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From Glitter to Gold: Recommendations for Effective Dashboards from Design through Sustainment

Implementation Science journal cover

Dashboards—tools that compile and summarize key performance data—have become increasingly utilized for supporting data organization and decision-making processes across various fields, such as business, economics, healthcare, and policy. The dashboard’s impact is dependent on its use by the individuals for whom it was designed. Yet, few studies measure dashboard use, and of those that do,…

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Using the IFASIS (Inventory of Factors Affecting Successful Implementation and Sustainment) to Advance Context-Specific and Generalizable Knowledge of Implementation Determinants: Case Study of a Digital Contingency Management Platform

Implementation Science journal cover

Background: Contingency management (CM) is the most effective treatment for stimulant use disorder but is underutilized by opioid treatment programs (OTPs) despite the high prevalence of stimulant use in this setting. As part of a state-wide initiative, we piloted a novel assessment, the Inventory of Factors Affecting Successful Implementation and Sustainment (IFASIS), to examine determinants…

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A Pragmatic Measure of Context at the Organizational Level: The Inventory of Factors Affecting Successful Implementation and Sustainment (IFASIS)

Implementation Science journal cover

Background: Successful implementation and sustainment of interventions is heavily influenced by context. Yet the complexity and dynamic nature of context make it challenging to connect and translate findings across implementation efforts. Existing methods to assess context are typically qualitative, limiting potential replicability and utility. Existing quantitative measures and the siloed nature of implementation efforts limit…

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Systemic Barriers and Stigma: Healthcare Provider Perspectives on Perinatal and Neonatal Care in the Fentanyl Crisis

The rise in fentanyl use during pregnancy has introduced new and complex challenges in caring for women with opioid use disorders (OUD) and their infants diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome or neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome (NAS/NOWS). Despite the increasing prevalence of opioid-affected mother-infant dyads, limited research exists on healthcare providers’ perspectives regarding fentanyl’s impact on…

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Understanding Inequitable Healthcare: Methodological Approaches, Challenges, and Opportunities

This paper considers methodological approaches that can help better understand inequity in healthcare, focusing on five key domains: availability, patient-centeredness, access, effectiveness, and implementation. We present conceptual definitions of each of these domains, example research questions pertaining to inequity in each domain, and methodological approaches that can contribute to research about health inequities. We discuss…

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