Imagine a chasm, with child development researchers on one side, and practitioners and policy-makers on the other. The gap may still be wide in many places, but in recent years moves have been made on both sides to build better bridges.

On one side, policy-makers and practitioners have become increasingly interested in using good research to inform their decisions. Researchers have done their part to bridge the gap, in turn, by creating a new domain of research: translational research.

Translational research is a broad church. There’s no uniform definition of what translational research encompasses, but it can be “best understood as a way of thinking that seeks to blend basic and applied research towards the common goal of improving the human condition.” This is the point made in a recent special issue of Child Development by US-based psychologists, who outline the common themes of translational research as it applies to developmental science.

“Use-inspired” and “need-inspired” research
The idea of “use-inspired research” is central in translation research. This perspective suggests that “all research, whether basic or applied, be developed with a consideration of how it can inform future application.” One way to encourage researchers to think carefully about the application of their research, the authors suggest, would be for academic journals to require researchers to outline the potential applications for policy and practice in the introduction to each article.

A complement to “use-inspired” research is “need-inspired” research. Of course, different perspectives lead to different ideas about what is “needed.” Research agendas can, and should, take into the relevance of the research to public policy, social issues, and public concern. For example, research on the benefits and risks of adolescent employment in this issue of Child Development focuses on an area of great public and policy interest.

The authors also call for translational researchers to look at “everyday contexts” as well as formal interventions. Formal interventions are expensive and require a high level of support for implementation. On the other hand, everyday contexts – such as children’s extracurricular activities – have the potential to make major changes in young people’s lives without the financial cost of an intervention.

Furthermore, both use-inspired and need-inspired research can draw on qualitative and mixed methods to provide a more complete story of problems. For example, a study in this issue of Child Development that takes a qualitative approach to bullying in schools was able to study children’s points of view. It was able to reveal the sexualized nature of bullying in middle and high school that often in overlooked in quantitative research.

From basic research to service systems
Translation scientists often look at one of several phases between basic science and practice. For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention follow a five-phase model: identify the biggest problems; identify risk and protective factors; design and test interventions under controlled conditions; test interventions in real-world settings; and, finally, trial the interventions as they are disseminated into service systems.

The first four of the five phases, grouped together under the name “Type 1 translation,” apply basic science research to the development and early testing of interventions. The fifth phase – dissemination trials – emphasizes how interventions are rolled out into systems well beyond researchers’ control. This fifth phase is called “Type 2 translation.”

An example of Type 1 translational research, for example, is the finding that the social competence that characterizes healthy child development translates, as children reach adulthood, into higher incomes and family investments in the next generation. Of course, this finding is relevant to policy because it demonstrates that “investments in today’s children also impact the children of tomorrow.”

However, less research has been done on Type 2 translation. Research on the adoption, implementation, and sustainability of evidence-based practices can be challenging because it depends, in part, on the broad difficulty of generalizing laboratory studies to a community context. Another Type 2 translation issue hinges on the question of costs and benefits: prevention research studies often examine “whether a behavior can be changed, not how much this will cost and whether the observed benefits offset the actual costs.”

The next steps
Translational researchers have started building better bridges between academics on one side of the chasm, and the practitioners and policy-makers on the other side. Many of these efforts share a common characteristic: they are multidisciplinary. They bring together neuroscientists, developmental psychologists, intervention researchers – and also often include those who will eventually make use of the findings. Such efforts, the authors say, should not only increase the efficiency of translational findings, but ultimately enhance our ability to raise healthy children.

References:
Guerra, N. C., Graham, S., & Tolan, P.H. (2011). Raising Healthy Children: Translating Child Development Research Into Practice. Child Development, 82(1), 7-16.