A call for supplemental implementation strategy reporting guidelines to advance minority health: applying expanded specification and reporting recommendations to the Literacy Promotion for Latinos study.

backgroundReporting guidelines for implementation strategies are important for transparency, measurement, and replicability. Yet, recent calls within implementation science highlight that foundational research commitments to advance minority health remain underspecified in current implementation strategy reporting guidelines.

methodsIn response, our research team sought to expand Proctor and colleagues' guidelines for reporting and specifying implementation strategies to advance minority health. We first identified and synthesized key elements for specification from relevant literature. We then applied potential supplemental reporting criteria to our Literacy Promotion for Latinos (LPL) study as a case example to iterate and refine the suggested supplemental criteria. LPL implemented text messages and streamlined access to community resources as implementation strategies to enhance uptake of Reach Out and Read, an evidence-based pediatric clinic-based literacy promotion intervention specifically among Latino families.

resultsOur suggested supplemental reporting criteria integrate elements of community-engagement and health disparities research foundational for advancing minority health. We offer a new category, (1) Prioritize It, to describe processes of defining and prioritizing the (a) health outcome gap of interest and (b) performance gap of the evidence-based intervention. We add criteria to Proctor and colleagues' (2) Specify It category, which outlines the description of the implementation strategies, to describe processes of implementation strategy (a) selection, (b) development, and (c) tailoring. Lastly, we suggest a new category, (3) Evaluate It, to include community-engaged evaluation processes. In our case example, we explain the team's processes and engagement of relevant community members and partners in (a) prioritizing disparities in linguistic and socio-emotional development for Latino children related to school readiness and performance gaps in Reach Out and Read for families in local clinic communities; (b) specifying the selection, development, and tailoring of implementation strategies to focus on social and structural drivers of this health disparity; and (c) facilitating community partnerships to evaluate the strategies.

conclusionsExpansion of implementation strategy criteria for reporting can help ensure commitments to advancing minority health are fulfilled. Future efforts should convene researchers and community partners to create expert consensus on the specifications required for implementation strategies for addressing drivers of disparities and advancing minority health.

trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov, Literacy Promotion for Latinos Study, NCT04609553, first posted October 30, 2020: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04609553.