Developing a strategy to promote the generation and effective use of population health research for NSW Health: 2011 - 2015

Abstract

Abstract:The Population Health Division of the NSW Department of Health has developed a 5-year strategy to improve the effectiveness of its resource investment in population health research. This paper describes the development of the strategy, Promoting the generation and effective use of population health research in NSW: a Strategy for NSW Health 2011-2015. A review of Australian and international strategic research documents and stakeholder interviews was conducted to support the development of the strategy. The findings from these two processes influenced the structure of the document and supported the inclusion of strategies and actions to assist with identifying research priorities, improving communication, enhancing networks and partnerships, supporting workforce development initiatives, providing research infrastructure, enhancing research and the use of research evidence and streamlining research governance and ethics processes. Small group discussions and a detailed review of literature were conducted to refine the thinking around four of the more complex aspects of the strategy. Finally, a broad consultation process was used to test the face validity of the proposed strategy content.The value of using evidence to inform health policy and practice is widely acknowledged. 1,2 A number of models have been developed; these processes are complex and evaluations of strategies to increase the use of evidence in policies and programs are rare. 3,4 NSW Health invests in population health research through both the Population Health Division of the New South Wales (NSW) Department of Health and local population health services. The Population Health Division has recently developed a strategy which outlines how it will facilitate the conduct of high-quality, relevant, population health research and the use of research evidence in policy and practice in NSW Health. This paper describes how this strategy, Promoting the generation and effective use of population health research in NSW: a Strategy for NSW Health 2011-2015 (the Strategy), was developed. MethodsAn Advisory Committee, comprising senior population health managers from the NSW Department of Health and local health services, academics in population health from NSW universities and senior managers from relevant non-government organisations, was established to provide guidance on the development and content of the Strategy.To inform development three projects were undertaken: (1) a review of strategic documents that support decisionmaking for health research; (2) a series of stakeholder interviews; and (3) a rapid review of the literature that examined strategies to increase the use of evidence from research in population health policy and programs. The first two projects, the review of strategic documents and the stakeholder interviews, form the basis of this paper. 5,6 The findings from the rapid literature review have been reported elsewhere. 4 Three small-group discussions were held to refine complex aspects of the Strategy and, as a final step, the dra...

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