Assessing and changing implicit cognitive processes in addiction: does it generalize from substance-related to non-substance-related addictions?

Abstract: Forty years ago, an Expert Committee on “Problems related to alcohol consumption”, invited by the World Health Organization (WHO), gathered in Geneva to discuss what could be done about the growth of alcohol‐related health problems worldwide. The meeting led to a re‐orientation by WHO towards a population strategy to the alcohol problem. Since then, substantial evidence has accumulated for the effectiveness of brief alcohol interventions to reduce hazardous and harmful drinking. Still, forty years later, widespread implementation of such interventions still has not occurred, with their delivery remaining suboptimal in routine primary care and other health settings. Why is that? This keynote lecture applies an implementation science perspective to understand factors of relevance for implementing brief alcohol interventions.

Implementation science has emerged as a vital and rapidly growing multidisciplinary research field to address challenges of achieving wider adoption and use of empirically supported practices in routine practice to improve health and welfare of populations. Implementation science is usually defined as the scientific study of ways to promote the systematic uptake of research-based practices into routine practice to improve the quality and effectiveness of health services and care. Determinant frameworks are commonly used in implementation science to identify influences on implementation outcomes and plan strategies to support implementation. I will discuss the challenges of implementing brief alcohol interventions based on an implementation determinant framework.