Translating Knowledge into Action to Prevent Type 2 Diabetes: Medicare Expansion of the National Diabetes Prevention Program Lifestyle Intervention

Context: Many evidence-based health interventions never achieve national implementation. This article analyzes factors that supported the translation and national implementation of a lifestyle change intervention to prevent or delay type 2 diabetes in individuals with prediabetes.

Methods: We used the Knowledge to Action framework, which was developed to map how science is translated into effective health programs, to examine how the evidence-based intervention from the 2002 Diabetes Prevention Program trial was translated into the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's large-scale National Diabetes Prevention Program, eventually resulting in payment for the lifestyle intervention as a Medicare-covered service.

Findings: Key findings of our analysis include the importance of a collaboration among researchers, policymakers, and payers to encourage early adopters; development of evidence-based, national standards to support widespread adoption of the intervention; and use of public input from community organizations to scale the intervention to a national level.

Conclusions: This analysis offers timely lessons for other high-value, scalable interventions attempting to move beyond the evidence-gathering phase and into translation and institutionalization.