Ways to scale interventions in the community

Key messages

• Implementing interventions at population level (‘at scale’) is recommended internationally to maximise their benefits.
• Community settings such as childcare services, schools, workplaces or sporting clubs – the places with access to large numbers of children or adults – provide valuable opportunities for scaling up interventions.
• However, prevention strategies are not being implemented systematically in these settings.
• This study provides the first comprehensive evidence synthesis in Australia aiming to guide policy makers in strategies to use when scaling up interventions in the community.
• We found implementation strategies can work, but there is considerable heterogeneity in their impact.
• Overall, the effects of implementation strategies are modest.
• Researchers are often not using implementation theory or frameworks.
• The evidence base is still developing: there is no ‘recipe’ for how to scale up interventions in community settings in Australia.
• Best practice for now is to understand the barriers to implementation and select implementation strategies that specifically address those barriers.
• Co-production is a good way of ensuring implementation is feasible in community settings.