Interventions to promote health equity: implications for implementation science in behavioral medicine

Disparities in health persist despite the development of innovative and effective behavioral interventions. Both behavioral medicine and implementation science are vital to improving health care and health outcomes, and both can play a critical role in advancing health equity. However, to eliminate health disparities, more research in these areas is needed to ensure disparity-reducing behavioral interventions are continually developed and implemented. This special issue on interventions to promote health equity presents a diverse set of articles focused on implementing behavioral interventions to reduce health disparities. The current article summarizes the special issue and identifies key themes and future considerations. Articles in this special issue report on behavioral medicine intervention studies (including those examining aspects of implementation) as well as implementation science studies with implications for behavioral medicine. Articles discuss community-, provider-, and system-level interventions; implementation processes; and barriers and facilitators to implementation. Also included are commentaries calling for greater prioritization of behavioral medicine and implementation research. As evidenced in this special issue, behavioral medicine is primed to lead the implementation of behavioral interventions in historically marginalized and minoritized populations to advance health equity and improve overall population health.