Great contributions to an important topic!
I spent 30 years, as an analyst and manager of analysts, working with health service policy makers and managers. Sometimes this was “hands on” research and analysis, sometimes it entailed commissioning research and sometimes it involved acting as a “broker” between academic researchers and policy makers.
Given that background I offer a few comments about helping communication between researchers and policymakers to meet their needs of the latter. Some of these comments of course echo ones already made in this discussion. Some of the lessons were learnt the hard way!
- Be aware - understand the policymakers’ business, their needs and appreciate their environment. Talk, and if possible work closely, with them to improve this understanding. Be conscious of any difficulties handling research findings might present to policymakers.
- Be relevant - find out health pollicymakers’ and managers’ “hot topics” and consider how research can identify and inform “high impact changes” in these areas.
- Be timely - fit with the “zeitgeist” matters, and policymakers’ timescales can be very short, which often does not sit easily with research timeframes. Communication about this needs to be realistic.
- Be visible - publish and publicise in the right way in the right places. For example do not publish only in research journals. Policymakers and managers are busy people and have little if any time to spend assimilating research reports.
- Be compelling - ensure messages are as robust and as simple as possible (though, to paraphrase Einstein, no simpler) and presented in a way that makes clear their policy relevance.
- Be a facilitator - make it easier for policymakers and managers to use research findings. For example computer models can help link research and policy; taking results from variety of research studies in their input and producing output that directly informs policy questions (the Lives Saved Tool (LIST) model is a well-known example). Such models also help indicate gaps in research needed to address policy issues - so they are a two-way communication tool.
As Chris Zielinski has noted, direct communication with policymakers is not the only way communicating research can influence thought and action. Research can get picked up by the media (with or without researchers’ assistance) and this reporting can influence policymakers and indeed the public. This influence can be positive, for example in publicising an important health protection issue, or negative, for example where media publicity misrepresents a health risk. (There are numerous examples of both of these, not least in the context of Covid and other epidemics.)
Geoff
HIFA profile: Geoff Royston is an Independent Health Analyst and Researcher, former Head of Strategic Analysis and Operational Research in the Department of Health for England, and Past President of the UK Operational Research Society. His work has focused on informing the design, implementation and evaluation of policies and programmes in health and social care, and on fostering the capabilities of others to work in these areas. Associated activities have included modelling for understanding the performance of complex systems, analysis and communication of risk, and horizon scanning and futures thinking. He has also worked on information and communication technology in the health sector, notably in leading the design and national launch of the telephone and online health information and advice service NHS Direct. He has served on both scientific and medical UK Research Council panels, and as an impact assessor for the UK higher education Research Excellence Framework. He is a member of the editorial board for the journal Health Care Management Science and in 2012 was Guest Editor for its special issue on Global Health. He has been a consultant for the World Health Organisation, is a long standing member of the EURO Working Group on Operational Research Applied to Health Services, and is an expert adviser to the mHIFA (mobile Healthcare Information for All) programme. http://www.hifa.org/projects/mobile-hifa-mhifa He is also a member of the main HIFA Steering Group and the HIFA working group on Evaluating the Impact of Healthcare Information.
http://www.hifa.org/support/members/geoff
geoff.royston AT gmail.com
