Department of Clinical Pharmacy, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.
Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy and Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
BMJ Open. 2017 Feb 20;7(2):e012738. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2016-012738.
Researchers advocating for evidence-informed policy have attempted to encourage policymakers to develop a greater understanding of research and researchers to develop a better understanding of the policymaking process. Our aim was to apply findings drawn from studies of the policymaking process, specifically the theory of policy windows, to identify strategies used to integrate evidence into policymaking and points in the policymaking process where evidence was more or less relevant.
Our observational study relied on interviews conducted with 24 policymakers from the USA who had been trained to interpret scientific research in multiple iterations of an evidence-based workshop. Participants were asked to describe cases where they had been involved in making health policy and to provide examples in which research was used, either successfully or unsuccessfully. Interviews were transcribed, independently coded by multiple members of the study team and analysed for content using key words, concepts identified by participants and concepts arising from review of the texts.
Our results suggest that policymakers who focused on health issues used multiple strategies to encourage evidence-informed policymaking. The respondents used a strict definition of what constituted evidence, and relied on their experience with research to discourage the use of less rigorous research. Their experience suggested that evidence was less useful in identifying problems, encouraging political action or ensuring feasibility and more useful in developing policy alternatives.
Past research has suggested multiple strategies to increase the use of evidence in policymaking, including the development of rapid-response research and policy-oriented summaries of data. Our findings suggest that these strategies may be most relevant to the policymaking stream, which develops policy alternatives. In addition, we identify several strategies that policymakers and researchers can apply to encourage evidence-informed policymaking.
倡导循证政策的研究人员试图鼓励政策制定者更好地了解研究，同时也让研究人员更好地了解政策制定过程。我们的目的是应用政策制定过程研究的结果，特别是政策窗口理论，来确定将证据纳入政策制定的策略，以及证据在政策制定过程中更相关或更不相关的点。
我们的观察性研究依赖于对 24 名来自美国的政策制定者进行的访谈，这些政策制定者在多次基于证据的研讨会中接受了解读科学研究的培训。参与者被要求描述他们参与制定卫生政策的案例，并提供研究成功或失败的例子。访谈记录被转录，由研究团队的多名成员独立编码，并使用关键词、参与者确定的概念和对文本的审查中出现的概念进行内容分析。
我们的研究结果表明，关注卫生问题的政策制定者使用了多种策略来鼓励循证政策制定。受访者对证据的定义非常严格，并且依靠他们的研究经验来阻止使用不太严格的研究。他们的经验表明，证据在识别问题、鼓励政治行动或确保可行性方面的作用较小，而在制定政策替代方案方面的作用较大。
过去的研究提出了多种增加循证政策制定中证据使用的策略，包括快速反应研究和面向政策的数据摘要的制定。我们的研究结果表明，这些策略可能与制定政策替代方案的政策制定渠道最为相关。此外，我们确定了一些政策制定者和研究人员可以应用的策略，以鼓励循证政策制定。
