If you are planning on heading to the Windy City next month for Experimental Biology (EB) 2017, please seek out and introduce yourself to our Board Members who can be identified by their SISN branded buttons.

As part of the American Society for Nutrition’s (ASN) scientific program, SISN will be presenting a symposium entitled “Implementation Research in Nutrition: Purposes, Methods and Applications”. Join us for this 75-minute session on Tuesday, April 25^th at 8am. Three engaging and expert speakers will be taking to the podium to illustrate how implementation science (IS) can be applied to improve the effectiveness, equity and efficiency of policies, programs and interventions within real-world settings.

As the first speaker, our President, Dr. David Pelletier will introduce the topic and a recently developed IS framework and typology, highlight the many ways in which IS can generate essential information to enhance implementation quality and scale, and describe new efforts underway at global and national levels to generate such information.

Dr. Lynnette Neufeld, from the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, will then illustrate how this IS framework and typology can be applied in practice by describing the implementation of a national infant and young child nutrition program.

Finally, we’re honored that Dr. Rachel Sturke, Director of the Fogarty Division of International Science Policy, Planning and Evaluation at the National Institutes of Health, has agreed to share the experiences in creating, structuring and supporting the NIH-PEPFAR PMTCT Implementation Science Alliance. The Alliance was formed to enhance effective implementation of evidence-based interventions to prevent mother-to-child-transmission of HIV (PMTCT), and thus can offer key lessons and recommendations on how SISN and the nutrition community might form a similar alliance for nutrition implementation in low- and middle-income countries. You may be interested in reading the articles in a recent special issue of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome that reported on the collective learning of the Alliance and important results of key IS studies. 

The symposium will conclude with a panel discussion moderated by the co-chairs Dr. Mandana Arabi and Dr. David Pelletier. We hope that these open deliberations will illuminate key research priorities for systematizing and harmonizing the theory and practice of IS. As a member, this is a unique opportunity to contribute to this important dialogue and be involved in shaping the future agenda of our society. We hope to see you there!                                                          

For full details of ASN at EB, please click here.