Methods of Intervention Research

Our focus is on methods for assessing complex, population-level preventive interventions. Commonly speaking, this refers to interventions which are more than the sum of their component parts. People also use the term complex interventions to refer to interventions acting on multiple, interacting parts of systems or settings.

We are interested to see if complexity is more than just a metaphor for health research. Does it make a material difference to the methods we might use to analyse a problem? Does it offer new ways to interpret events?

The Centre and ICCI are investigating:

narratives of practice and cause-and-consequence thinking in the hands of the people responsible for implementing community development interventions
multiplier effects across systems
social networks as both mediators of effects and as outcomes of interventions (i.e., measuring how we make schools or communities more socially inclusive)
how context modifies intervention effects

Feature publications:

Hawe P, Shiell A, Riley T. Theorising interventions as events in systems. American Journal of Community Psychology 2009;43(3-4):267-276

Hawe P, Ghali L. Use of social network analysis to map the social relationships of staff and teachers at school. Health Education Research 2008;23(1):62-69

Shiell A, Hawe P, Gold L. Complex interventions or complex systems? Implications for health economic evaluation. British Medical Journal 2008;336:1281-1283

Green LW, Glasgow RE. Evaluating the relevance, generalization, and applicability of research. Evaluation and the Health Professions 2006;29(1):126-153

Hawe P, Shiell A, Riley T, Gold L. Methods for exploring implementation variation and local context within a cluster randomised community intervention trial. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 2004;58:788-793