Ivory Towers or Earthen Trenches? Community Collaborations to Foster Real-World Research

Despite important advances in recent years in evidenced-based approaches to prevent and treat mental, behavioral, and emotional disturbances in children and adolescents, the long-standing difficulties of moving research findings from bench to bedside have persisted, even in the face of rising problems in youth. To address these continuing difficulties in translating research results into practice, we suggest that researchers move away from studies that ask what works under optimal, university-based, research conditions to investigations that examine what works that is also palatable, feasible, durable, affordable, and sustainable in real-world settings. We discuss the challenges entailed in moving university-based, "efficacy" research into more real-world community settings. We discuss principles for effective and meaningful collaborations between university investigators and community partners, including (a) an enhanced focus on external validity, (b) the incorporation of the values and needs of communit...