The Sax Institute, University of Sydney, Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Queensland, Australia.
Milbank Q. 2011 Dec;89(4):564-98. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-0009.2011.00643.x.
Public health researchers make a limited but important contribution to policy development. Some engage with policy directly through committees, advisory boards, advocacy coalitions, ministerial briefings, intervention design consultation, and research partnerships with government, as well as by championing research-informed policy in the media. Nevertheless, the research utilization literature has paid little attention to these diverse roles and the ways that policymakers use them. This article describes how policymakers use researchers in policymaking and examines how these activities relate to models of research utilization. It also explores the extent to which policymakers' accounts of using researchers concur with the experiences of "policy-engaged" public health researchers.
We conducted semi-structured interviews with thirty-two Australian civil servants, parliamentary ministers, and ministerial advisers identified as "research-engaged" by public health researchers. We used structured and inductive coding to generate categories that we then compared with some of the major research utilization models.
Policymakers were sophisticated and multifaceted users of researchers for purposes that we describe as Galvanizing Ideas, Clarification and Advice, Persuasion, and Defense. These categories overlapped but did not wholly fit with research utilization models. Despite the negative connotation, "being used" was reported as reciprocal and uncompromising, although researchers and policymakers were likely to categorize these uses differently. Policymakers countered views expressed by some researchers. That is, they sought robust dialogue and creative thinking rather than compliance, and they valued expert opinion when research was insufficient for decision making. The technical/political character of policy development shaped the ways in which researchers were used.
Elucidating the diverse roles that public health researchers play in policymaking, and the multiple ways that policymakers use these roles, provides researchers and policymakers with a framework for negotiating and reflecting on activities that may advance the public health goals shared by both.
公共卫生研究人员对政策制定做出了有限但重要的贡献。一些研究人员通过委员会、顾问委员会、倡导联盟、部长简报、干预设计咨询以及与政府的研究伙伴关系，以及在媒体上倡导以研究为依据的政策，直接参与政策制定。然而，研究利用文献对这些不同的角色以及政策制定者如何利用这些角色关注甚少。本文描述了政策制定者如何在决策中利用研究人员，并探讨了这些活动与研究利用模式的关系。它还探讨了政策制定者对利用研究人员的描述在多大程度上与“参与政策制定的”公共卫生研究人员的经验相符。
我们对 32 名澳大利亚公务员、议会部长和部长顾问进行了半结构化访谈，这些人被公共卫生研究人员认定为“参与研究”。我们使用结构化和归纳编码来生成类别，然后将这些类别与一些主要的研究利用模型进行比较。
政策制定者是老练且多方面的研究人员使用者，其目的我们描述为激发想法、澄清和建议、说服和辩护。这些类别虽然有重叠，但不完全符合研究利用模型。尽管有负面含义，但据报道，“被利用”是相互的，且毫不妥协的，尽管研究人员和政策制定者可能会对这些用途进行不同的分类。政策制定者反驳了一些研究人员的观点。也就是说，他们寻求强有力的对话和创造性思维，而不是遵守，并且在研究不足以做出决策时，他们重视专家意见。政策制定的技术/政治性质塑造了研究人员被利用的方式。
阐明公共卫生研究人员在决策制定中扮演的多种角色，以及政策制定者利用这些角色的多种方式，为研究人员和政策制定者提供了一个框架，用于协商和反思可能推进双方共同的公共卫生目标的活动。
