Embedding Equity into Intervention Mapping (IM-Equity)
The SEMPRE team has worked alongside international and national collaborators to explore how equity can be explicitly embedded within Intervention Mapping – a 6-step framework for program design, implementation and evaluation. Intervention Mapping has been used to develop, deliver, and evaluate thousands of programs/interventions in public health, education and social care, offering a roadmap from problem identification through to problem-solving or mitigation. Whilst it provides a clear rationale to develop programs that address equity, equity was not an explicit focus in any of the six Intervention Mapping steps. There was a need for clear and detailed guidance to support program planners to embed equity explicitly across all aspects of program planning, design, implementation and evaluation.
Through six workshops involving over 100 health clinicians, social care practitioners, educators, researchers and policy makers from Australia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Singapore, Japan, Mexico, the United States and Europe, and in partnership with the Intervention Mapping founders from the University of Texas and Maastricht University, we have co-developed Intervention Mapping-Equity (IM-Equity), a systematic, socioecological approach that guides program planners to explicitly integrate equity across all stages of program planning. IM-Equity is based on the practice-informed knowledge and expertise of health, social care and education practitioners, researchers and policy makers from around the world with experience in designing and delivering programs.
IM-Equity aims to provide a framework for embedding equity into implementation from the outset (i.e., from program conception). The initial version of IM-Equity includes four key guiding principles, 14 underlying equity strategies, and an IM-Equity Wheel to demonstrate how these strategies can be embedded within each of the Intervention Mapping core processes and support the completion of each Intervention Mapping step.
We are continuing to strengthen and refine IM-Equity through lived experience, incorporating practitioner, researcher, First Nations, and Global North and Global South perspectives. We are also developing resources, tools and training to support program planners to include equity intentionally and explicitly as a process throughout each of the Intervention Mapping steps.
Work to date
Workshops to develop IM-Equity
- 2-day in-person Intervention Mapping Equity workshop with Australian program leaders and industry partners spanning health, education and social care, co-facilitated by Professor María Fernández from UTHealth, Texas USA, 30 April–1 May 2024.
- 2.5-day in-person Intervention Mapping Equity workshop with colleagues from the IVAN Research Institute (Nigeria) and the Nigerian Implementation Science Alliance (NISA), 13–15 August 2024.
- 2-day in-person Intervention Mapping Equity workshop with Malaysian preconception health professionals held at Monash University Malaysia, 19–20 August 2024.
- 1-day in-person Intervention Mapping Equity workshop with a range of international health professionals held at University Hospital Leuven, Belgium, 18 September 2024.
- Online Intervention Mapping Equity workshop with The Australian Prevention Partnership Centre, for prevention practitioners, policy makers and researchers, 23–24 October 2024.
- Online Intervention Mapping Equity workshop with health professionals from Houston and Mexico in the LISTOS Centre for Cancer Control, 4 March 2025.
IM-Equity Training and Workshops (Facilitated)
- Equity in Women and Children’s Health workshop – In-person, KK Women's and Children's Hospital, Singapore, 7 July 2025.
- Micro-credentialled Intervention Mapping-Equity short course – Online, 3 days, Monash University, Australia, 2–4 June 2025.
- Intervention Mapping-Equity course – In-person, 5 days, Monash University, Malaysia, 2–6 December 2024.
Training (Attended)
- Intervention Mapping Summer Course – In-person, University of Maastricht, The Netherlands, 30 June–4 July 2025.
- Implementation Mapping: Step 5 of the Intervention Mapping Process – In-person, UT Health, Houston USA, 30–31 May 2024.
- IM-ADAPT – In-person, UT Health, Houston USA, 28 May 2024.
Presentations
- “Equity in Women and Children’s Health: Reimagining Implementation Research and Practice” – Women's College Hospital Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care, University of Toronto, Canada, 13 February 2026.
- “Equity by Design: Reimagining Research and Implementation in Ways that are Ethically Grounded, Culturally Responsive, and Structurally Transformative” – IVAN Institute Webinar Series, Nigeria, 6 October 2025.
- “Embedding Equity in Implementation Science from the Outset” – Women’s Health Research Institute BC Women’s Health Research Rounds, Melbourne, Australia, 17 December 2024.
- “Embedding Equity into Implementation Science: Moving Beyond Western, Eurocentric Models, Theories, and Practices” (Keynote) – STePPS CRE Webinar, Melbourne, Australia, 28 November 2024.
- “The best start to life: Enhancing Equity through Implementation Science” – Women’s Health Research Institute BC Women’s Health Research Rounds, Melbourne, Australia, 15 November 2024.
- “Embedding Equity in Implementation Science from the Outset” – 2024 Sax Colloquium & Forum: New Horizons in Implementation Science, Melbourne, Australia, 12 November 2024.
- “Implementation Science and Health Equity” – GIS & UTHealth Houston Global Conference 2024, Houston USA, 29 May 2024.
Collaborations
Collaboration with international Intervention Mapping experts including:
Literature review exploring equity in program design
Interventions and programs that are not designed or implemented with an equity focus may inadvertently perpetuate, increase or reinforce existing inequities. To further our understanding of how equity is currently included in intervention/program design, and to support researchers, clinicians, policy-makers and others to develop and implement equity-focused interventions/programs, we are undertaking a literature review to identify and describe program development frameworks and models that have an equity focus or have been used to develop interventions focused on improving equity, including their purpose, components, applications and operationalisation. The findings will inform recommendations to guide the effective inclusion of equity-focused processes in program development.
