Symposium 2018: Closing the Gap between Rigor and Relevance
Implementation science is an emerging field focused on closing the gap between efficacious interventions and real world practice. While the HIV research community has enthusiastically embraced the motivation for implementation science, there is far less consensus on the critical approaches to successful conduct of implementation science in the context of the HIV epidemic. Many methodological issues, which have perhaps been less emphasized in traditional clinical research, are particularly salient for knowledge about implementation. External validity is as important as internal validity.