Beginning with the application in mind: Designing and planning health behavior change interventions to enhance dissemination

Dissemination of behavior change interventions can be enhanced by considering key elements related to public health impact in the study design and planning phases of research projects. In this article we describe a framework of reach, efficacy/effectiveness, adoption, implementation, and maintenance known as RE-AIM and how it can be used to plan and design studies with features that can strengthen the potential translation of interventions. In describing how RE-AIM concepts were introduced to and adopted by 15 behavior change intervention studies as part of the Behavioral Change Consortium (BCC), we provide an example of practical application of the framework. Recommendations for applying the framework to study planning are based on literature reviews conducted by the RE-AIM workgroup and on discussions with investigators who participated in BCC. Utilizing RE-AIM as a planning framework may have increased attention to issues of external validity among BCC studies and enhanced the potential translation and dissemination of intervention findings into practice.