By: Courtney F. Aklin, PhD, Director, National Institute of Nursing Research, and Mia Rochelle Lowden, PhD, Strategic Scientific Advisor, National Institute of Nursing Research

Scientific discovery has transformed what we know about preventing disease, treating illness, and extending life. But discovery improves health only when it reaches people in ways that work within the circumstances of their lives, the systems through which they receive care, and the communities where they live. This challenge is increasingly urgent.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, three out of four U.S. adults live with at least one chronic condition. More than half of U.S. adults live with two or more chronic conditions. Ninety percent of the nation’s $5.3 trillion in annual health care expenditures are for people with chronic and mental health conditions. These numbers underscore the significant need to develop effective interventions that are usable, accessible, and sustainable within the complexity of everyday life.

Nursing science connects discovery to daily life

Nursing science brings a distinctive scientific perspective to health by examining the whole person and the biological, behavioral, social, environmental, organizational, and system-level factors that shape health outcomes. This perspective connects discovery with the realities of patients’ and caregivers’ daily lives.

At the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), we lead and support nursing research as part of the National Institutes of Health. NINR supports science that contributes to preventing and managing disease, improves systems of care, and examines the conditions of daily life that influence health. Across these areas, we are sharpening our focus on what determines whether scientific advances are accessible, feasible, sustainable, and effective in practice.

To strengthen the bridge from discovery to implementation, we ask questions such as:

• Why does an intervention that succeeds in a controlled study fail to reach some people in practice?
• How do caregiving responsibilities, transportation, food access, work, housing, or health literacy affect whether a treatment is feasible?
• How can health systems better support people living with multiple conditions?
• What does it take to move an effective intervention into different settings and sustain it over time?

Patients and caregivers help define the questions that matter

For science to have meaningful impact, patients, families, caregivers, and communities cannot enter the process only after the research questions have been chosen. Their experiences can help identify the questions science needs to address now.

As NINR develops its next strategic plan, we have been listening broadly across research and health communities. The National Health Council and Research!America hosted a strategic planning listening session with NINR, bringing patient organizations and research leaders into that conversation. Their perspectives reinforced a fundamental notion that people experience health across the entirety of their lives, not within the boundaries of a single clinic, diagnosis, or research study.

Patients and caregivers see the cumulative effects of fragmented care, treatment burden, competing responsibilities, and systems that do not always fit together. Patient organizations also hold deep knowledge about the needs of their communities and the practical barriers that determine whether scientific advances become meaningful improvements in health.

The next frontier is the science of impact

The future of health research will bring extraordinary discovery, new technologies, and increasingly precise approaches to prevention and treatment. Turning these advances into better health will require rigorous science on context, implementation, systems, settings, and human experience. That is the science of impact and that is where nursing science has an essential role. Our vision at NINR is to advance science across the full continuum of research so that discovery does not stop at what is possible, but reaches what is workable, sustainable, and meaningful for patients, families, and communities.

The measure of scientific progress is whether discovery ultimately improves health in the places where people experience it every day.

About the authors

Courtney F. Aklin, PhD, is Director of the National Institute of Nursing Research at the National Institutes of Health, where she leads the Institute’s efforts to advance nursing science across the research continuum and strengthen the connection between scientific discovery and meaningful health impact.

Mia Rochelle Lowden, PhD, is a Strategic Scientific Advisor to the Director of the National Institute of Nursing Research at the National Institutes of Health, where she helps shape research priorities, programs, and policies in collaboration with leaders across NIH and the broader scientific community.