Final Report - Social Work Policy Institute

COMPARATIVE EFFECTIVENESS RESEARCH AND SOCIAL WORK FINAL REPORTRecommendations to Promote Practice-Research Linkages• Further develop researcher/practitioner/client linkages as a standard of practice by buildingsupport from administrators, universities, and advocacy organizations for such linkages.• Train current practitioners about how research can be used to inform practice, includingstrategies for adopting and adapting interventions.• Expand practitioners’ knowledge of research to foster collaborations for more research inreal world settings.• Encourage practitioners to pursue publishing results of evaluations and outcomes ofpractice. Many practitioners evaluate the outcomes of practice, but do not disseminate theresearch. Dissemination of practice research could enhance the knowledge base needed tobuild or establish an intervention’s effectiveness.• Integrate research skills into clinical training programs within universities and agencies sothat practitioners can be taught to use and produce research.• Encourage organizations to support practitioners’ use of and production of research byallocating time and resources to establish research as a component of employment.Strategies could include adding research expectations in job descriptions and byrecognizing and rewarding research activities in annual employee evaluations.• Consider both cost and cost effectiveness in selecting and evaluating interventions. Lesseffective, yet cheaper interventions may end up costing the agency more money in the longrun in addition to the personal implications for patients when less effective interventionsare used.The social work profession and especially the social work research enterprise is well-positioned tobe fully engaged with Comparative Effectiveness Research efforts, based on the definitions,priorities, strategies and challenges laid out by the federal government. Attention needs to begiven to continuing to build social work effectiveness research; involving social workers as part ofinterdisciplinary research teams; ensuring that findings from social work research are included indata and research repositories and systematic reviews; encouraging participatory research effortsthat fully engage service providers and consumers; encouraging economic evaluation as an integralpart of research studies; facilitating innovative research dissemination strategies and strengtheningresearch/practice/policy linkages. Professional and scientific societies, universities, service provideragencies, consumers and funders of research and services all have important roles to play inensuring the health and well-being of our society, especially those at highest risk to experiencehealth disparities.SOCIAL WORK POLICY INSTITUTE 24