The revised NIH stage model provides clear guidelines on how to develop mechanistic, maximally potent, effective and scalable interventions.  

The NIA Health Disparities Framework supports a mechanistic and life course understanding of health disparities. It includes fundamental factors like race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability status and identity. It outlines several levels of analyses including environmental, sociocultural, and interpersonal that are relevant to dyadic behavioral research and should be included when developing and testing such interventions. The NIA Health Disparities Framework provides a roadmap for accounting for social determinants of health across the NIH stage model. 

The integration of the CDC prevention model emphasizes the need to develop interventions across the continuum of prevention (primary, secondary and tertiary) to efficiently and effectively support dyads of persons who are at risk for, or are already diagnosed with dementia, and their care-partners, consistent with recommendations from Lancet 2017 and 2020.

The Science Of Behavior Change (SOBC) method is a systematic approach to identifying and studying mechanisms that drive behavior change. Understanding these mechanisms helps explain how and why an intervention “works” to improve health and well-being.  

Dyadic theory informs the selection of mechanisms (both individual and dyadic) to inform the development of dyadic interventions that prioritize interpersonal processes and their impact on health and dementia outcomes, balance the needs of persons with dementia and caregiver, and improve individual and dyadic or relational outcomes.