Relevance for Public Health

This report highlights the planning, execution and evaluation of knowledge exchange and application by using the example of applying climate science to address water management issues. Access to timely and relevant evidence is critical when dealing with public health issues such as chronic disease management and prevention, motor vehicle safety or maternal health.

Description

This tool was designed to increase the relevancy and accessibility of research findings for decision makers and to build effective relationships between researchers and decision makers. It provides practical information to help bridge the gap between these groups, including a clear process to facilitate knowledge translation. By addressing a number of identified barriers to collaboration, this tool will help build effective relationships between these two groups.

Recognizing that the decision?making context is becoming increasingly complex, decisions makers need to place more emphasis on interdisciplinary research. Greater collaboration with researchers is needed to meet the informational needs of decision makers and to increase the application of research findings.

This tool recommends increasing knowledge translation within the following five areas:  

1. conditions for providing useful services and products
2. communication and collaboration strategies
3. facilitation of knowledge translation and institutional change
4. evaluation of knowledge translation outcomes
5. measures of successful collaboration  

This tool emphasizes five key areas that researchers should consider when interacting with decision makers to advance knowledge translation. Questions, tips and recommendations are presented to guide these approaches to knowledge exchange, with the intention of improving its application.

1.  Conditions for providing useful services and products

• Acknowledge that the decision maker's "decision space" represents the range of realistic options available to address a specific issue.
• Understand that the informational needs of decision makers can be influenced by the time framedefined by the decision (short term versus long term).
• Determine the acceptable level of accuracy/uncertainty that decision makers requireto make decisions and the associated benefits and risks of different policy alternatives.
• Ensure the credibility of information and its sources.
• Ensure that the scale of information is not too large to be useful, and attend to time frames during which decisions are made.
• Recognize that information that isaccessible and available to decision makersat the appropriate time has the best chance of being considered in thepolicy development process or when a policy window opens.

2.  Communication and collaboration strategies

• Develop a strategy for collaboration and communication to delineate roles andexpectations of different stakeholders.
• Recognize that collaboration is an iterative process requiring information flow between decision makers and researchers to allow for a constructive approach.
• Focus on the usability of information where findings are provided in a format that allows for policy applications.
• Recognize that increasing access to information will increase the power of stakeholders and their subsequent ability to respond to this new knowledge. Also, considertheimplications of equity issues and values in the decision-making process.
• Create platforms for collaborative processes outside of universities.

3.  Incentives for change

• Identify the risks and benefits associated with different decisions for specific decision makers within their organizations.
• Identify the presence of leadership within agencies or stakeholder groups to facilitate knowledge uptake.
• Identify events or crises as opportunities to increase knowledge and act on them.
• Use social scientists to identify stakeholders' needs and perspectives to encourage interaction and sustain relationships.
• Use knowledge brokers to interpret and tailor research findings to stakeholders'informational and decision-making needs.

4.  Mechanisms for evaluation and feedback

• Develop an evaluation plan, with clearly identified outcomes and indicators, before initiating a program.
• Evaluate the utility of particular tools and provide value-added products that have policy implications.
• Identify individuals and organizationsthat are actual/potential stakeholders and solicittheir feedback.

5.  Measures of success collaboration

• Identify achievable and clear measures of success in collaboration from the perspective of multiple stakeholders (see primary document, p. 18).

Katharine Jacobs
Professor and Specialist
Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science and Institute of the Environment 
University of Arizona
845 N. Park Ave,
5th Floor, Suite 535
Tucson, AZ  85721
Email: jacobsk@email.arizona.edu

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Reference

Jacobs, K. L., Garfin, G., & Lenart, M. (2005). More than just talk: Connecting science and decision making. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 47(9), 6-21.

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Reference

Jacobs, K. L. (2002). Connecting Science, Policy, and Decisionmaking: A Handbook for Researchers and Science Agencies. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office of Global Programs.

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