Jonathan Purtle

Associate Professor of Public Health Policy & Management

Director of Policy Research at NYU’s Global Center for Implementation Science

Professional overview

Jonathan Purtle is Associate Professor of Public Health Policy & Management and Director of Policy Research at NYU’s Global Center for Implementation Science.

Dr. Purtle is an implementation scientist whose research focuses on mental health policy. His work examines questions such as how research evidence can be most effectively communicated to policymakers and is used in policymaking processes, how social and political contexts affect policymaking and policy implementation, and how the implementation of policies “on the books” can be improved in practice. He is also interested in population-based approaches to mental health and how mental health can be integrated in to mainstream public health practice.

Dr. Purtle’s work has been consistently funded by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). He is currently leading NIMH-funded projects focused on the implementation of financing policies related to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (R01MH131649) and policies that earmark taxes for mental health services (R21MH125261) and understanding the dynamics of research evidence in mental health policymaking (P50MH113662) . He recently completed a RWJF-funded project that experimentally tested different ways of communicating evidence about child maltreatment to the public and policymakers. His research is regularly published in journals such as Implementation Science, Psychiatric Services, The Milbank Quarterly, and Annual Review of Public Health. He is Core Faculty of the NIMH-funded Implementation Research Institute, was Chair of the Policy Section of the AcademyHeath/NIH Dissemination and Implementation in Heath Conference from 2017 to 2022, was awarded the 2018 Champion of Evidence-Based Interventions Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies for his work on evidence use in mental health policymaking.

Education

BA, Psychology, Roger Williams University

MSc, Sociology, Universiteit van Amsterdam

MPH, Drexel University

DrPH, Drexel University

Publications

Publications

Acceptability and feasibility of policy implementation strategies for taxes earmarked for behavioral health services

Methods and measures to evaluate the impact of participatory model building on public policymakers: a scoping review protocol

A landscape assessment of the activities and capacities of evidence-to-policy intermediaries (EPI) in behavioral health

A policy implementation study of earmarked taxes for mental health services: study protocol

Amplifying consumers as partners in dissemination and implementation science and practice

An Examination of Factors Affecting State Legislators’ Support for Parity Laws for Different Mental Illnesses

Comparing organization-focused and state-focused financing strategies on provider-level reach of a youth substance use treatment model: a mixed-method study

County- and state-level immigration policies are associated with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participation among Latino households

Earmarked Taxes for Mental Health Services in the United States: A Local and State Legal Mapping Study

Four very basic ways to think about policy in implementation science

Purtle, J., Moucheraud, C., Yang, L. H., & Shelley, D. (n.d.).

Publication year

2023

Journal title

Implementation Science Communications

Volume

4

Issue

1

10.1186/s43058-023-00497-1

Abstract

Abstract

Background: Policy is receiving increasing attention in the field of implementation science. However, there remains a lack of clear, concise guidance about how policy can be conceptualized in implementation science research. Building on Curran’s article “Implementation science made too simple”—which defines “the thing” as the intervention, practice, or innovation in need of implementation support—we offer a typology of four very basic ways to conceptualize policy in implementation science research. We provide examples of studies that have conceptualized policy in these different ways and connect aspects of the typology to established frameworks in the field. The typology simplifies and refines related typologies in the field. Four very basic ways to think about policy in implementation science research. 1) Policy as something to adopt: an evidence-supported policy proposal is conceptualized as “the thing” and the goal of research is to understand how policymaking processes can be modified to increase adoption, and thus reach, of the evidence-supported policy. Policy-focused dissemination research is well-suited to achieve this goal. 2) Policy as something to implement: a policy, evidence-supported or not, is conceptualized as “the thing” and the goal of research is to generate knowledge about how policy rollout (or policy de-implementation) can be optimized to maximize benefits for population health and health equity. Policy-focused implementation research is well-suited to achieve this goal. 3) Policy as context to understand: an evidence-supported intervention is “the thing” and policies are conceptualized as a fixed determinant of implementation outcomes. The goal of research is to understand the mechanisms through which policies affect implementation of the evidence-supported intervention. 4) Policy as strategy to use: an evidence-supported intervention is “the thing” and policy is conceptualized as a strategy to affect implementation outcomes. The goal of research is to understand, and ideally test, how policy strategies affect implementation outcomes related to the evidence-supported intervention. Conclusion: Policy can be conceptualized in multiple, non-mutually exclusive ways in implementation science. Clear conceptualizations of these distinctions are important to advancing the field of policy-focused implementation science and promoting the integration of policy into the field more broadly.

Growing inequities in mental health crisis services offered to indigent patients in Puerto Rico versus the US states before and after Hurricanes Maria and Irma

Implementation of the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: Estimating State-Level Increases in Call Demand Costs and Financing

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 2020 In-State Answer Rates, Stratified by Call Volume Rates and Geographic Region

Newspaper Coverage of Adverse Childhood Experiences and Toxic Stress in the United States, 2014–2020: Consequences, Causes, and Solutions

Revisiting the policy ecology framework for implementation of evidence-based practices in mental health settings

State and Federal Legislators’ Responses on Social Media to the Mental Health and Burnout of Health Care Workers Throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic: Natural Language Processing and Sentiment Analysis

State Legislator Social Media Posts about the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

Tailoring dissemination strategies to increase evidence-informed policymaking for opioid use disorder treatment: study protocol

Unintended consequences of disseminating behavioral health evidence to policymakers: Results from a survey-based experiment

Use of qualitative systems mapping and causal loop diagrams to understand food environments, diet and obesity: a scoping review protocol

Use, Potential Use, and Awareness of the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline by Level of Psychological Distress

Using audience segmentation to identify implementation strategies to improve PrEP uptake among at-risk cisgender women: a mixed-methods study protocol

Where do psychologists turn to inform clinical decisions? Audience segmentation to guide dissemination strategies

Who’s “in the room where it happens”? A taxonomy and five-step methodology for identifying and characterizing policy actors

Comparing two federal financing strategies on penetration and sustainment of the adolescent community reinforcement approach for substance use disorders: protocol for a mixed-method study