Assessing country-level efforts to link research to action

Abstract

We developed a framework for assessing country-level efforts to link research to action. The framework has four elements. The first element assesses the general climate (how those who fund research, universities, researchers and users of research support or place value on efforts to link research to action). The second element addresses the production of research (how priority setting ensures that users' needs are identified and how scoping reviews, systematic reviews and single studies are undertaken to address these needs). The third element addresses the mix of four clusters of activities used to link research to action. These include push efforts (how strategies are used to support action based on the messages arising from research), efforts to facilitate "user pull" (how "one-stop shopping" is provided for optimally packaged high-quality reviews either alone or as part of a national electronic library for health, how these reviews are profiled during "teachable moments" such as intense media coverage, and how rapid-response units meet users' needs for the best research), "user pull" efforts undertaken by those who use research (how users assess their capacity to use research and how structures and processes are changed to support the use of research) and exchange efforts (how meaningful partnerships between researchers and users help them to jointly ask and answer relevant questions). The fourth element addresses approaches to evaluation (how support is provided for rigorous evaluations of efforts to link research to action).Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2006;84:620-628.Voir page 626 le résumé en français. En la página 627 figura un resumen en español.

Relationship of Electronic Medical Knowledge Resource Use and Practice Characteristics with Internal Medicine Maintenance of Certification Examination Scores

“…Fifth, electronic resources may differ in the extent to which they "push" or "pull" evidence to clinicians, meaning some resources provide general information to clinicians through online and print media while other resources require physicians to actively acquire specific information when needed. 41 We were unable to explore such differences in this study and this remains an important area for future research. Finally, although participants in this study had higher IM-MOCE scores on average, it is reassuring that the score patterns across available demographic factors were very similar for participants and the remainder of the IM-MOCE examinees.…”

Child poverty, evidence and policy

“…As such, a more appropriate emphasis may be on 'knowledge interaction' or 'knowledge mediation', which encompasses 'the messy nature of engagements between actors with diverse types of knowledge'). As Lavis et al (2006) argue, this involves partnerships between the 'producers' and 'users' of knowledge that recognise the 'co-construction' of policy knowledge, including forging a shared understanding about what research questions to ask, how to go about answering them and how best to interpret the answers. Similar ideas have been advocated by proponents of deliberative processes that involve bringing together scientists, policymakers and citizens so as to interrogate evidence from a range of perspectives (scientific, social, cultural and ethical), and ground decisions in relevant, feasible and implementable advice (Lomas et al, 2008).…”

A call for a backward design to knowledge translation

“…Specifically, capacity-building efforts should target the individual, team, institutional, and systems levels (10). At the individual level, these include researchers' skills to: i) conduct policy-relevant research and systematic reviews, ii) prepare evidence briefs for policy and other evidence synthesis products, iii) engage research users and other stakeholders in priority setting meetings and deliberative dialogues, and iv) conduct ongoing monitoring and evaluations (11,12). For research users and other stakeholders in particular, capacity should be built to access, assess and apply research evidence into policymaking as well as to promote evidence-informed advocacy and health reporting (the latter especially for media).…”