The Policy Institute, King's College London, 22 Kingsway, London, WC2B 6LE, UK.
RAND Europe, Westbrook Centre, Cambridge, CB4 1YG, UK.
BMC Med Res Methodol. 2020 Feb 19;20(1):34. doi: 10.1186/s12874-020-0905-7.
The mechanisms and pathways to impacts from public health research in the UK have not been widely studied. Through the lens of one funder (NIHR), our aims are to map the diversity of public health research, in terms of funding mechanisms, disciplinary contributions, and public health impacts, identify examples of impacts, and pathways to impact that existing reporting mechanisms may not otherwise have captured, and provide illustrations of how public health researchers perceive the generation of non-academic impact from their work.
A total of 1386 projects were identified as 'public health research' by the NIHR and listed in the NIHR Public Health Overview database (2000-2016). From these, a subset of 857 projects were matched as potentially having begun reporting impacts via an external data-gathering platform (Researchfish). Data on the 857 projects were analyzed quantitatively, and nine projects were selected to investigate further through semi-structured interviews with principal investigators. Two workshops took place to validate emerging and final findings and facilitate analysis.
In addition to the NIHR School for Public Health Research and the NIHR Public Health Research Programme, 89% of projects contained in the NIHR Public Health Overview portfolio as 'public health research' are funded via other NIHR research programmes, suggesting significant diversity in disciplines contributing to public health research and outcomes. The pathways to impact observed in our in-depth case studies include contributing to debates on what constitutes appropriate evidence for national policy change, acknowledging local 'unintended' impacts, building trusted relationships with stakeholders across health and non-health sectors and actors, collaborating with local authorities, and using non-academic dissemination channels.
Public health as a discipline contributes substantially to impact beyond academia. To support the diversity of these impacts, we need to recognise localized smaller-scale impacts, and the difference in types of evidence required for community and local authority-based impacts. This will also require building capacity and resources to enable impact to take place from public health research. Finally, support is required for engagement with local authorities and working with non-health sectors that contribute to health outcomes.
英国公共卫生研究的影响机制和途径尚未得到广泛研究。通过一个资助者（NIHR）的视角，我们的目标是根据资助机制、学科贡献和公共卫生影响来描绘公共卫生研究的多样性，确定影响的例子，以及现有报告机制可能没有捕捉到的影响途径，并说明公共卫生研究人员如何从他们的工作中产生非学术影响的看法。
NIHR 确定了 1386 个被认为是“公共卫生研究”的项目，并列入了 NIHR 公共卫生概览数据库（2000-2016）。在这些项目中，有 857 个项目被认为可能通过外部数据收集平台（Researchfish）开始报告影响。对这 857 个项目的数据进行了定量分析，并选择了 9 个项目进行进一步调查，通过对主要研究者的半结构化访谈进行调查。举办了两次研讨会，以验证新出现的和最终的研究结果，并促进分析。
除了 NIHR 公共卫生研究学院和 NIHR 公共卫生研究计划外，NIHR 公共卫生概览组合中作为“公共卫生研究”的 89%的项目是通过其他 NIHR 研究计划资助的，这表明对公共卫生研究和结果做出贡献的学科多样性很大。我们深入案例研究中观察到的影响途径包括为国家政策变革的适当证据构成提供辩论，承认当地的“意外”影响，与健康和非健康部门以及利益相关者建立值得信赖的关系，与地方当局合作，并使用非学术传播渠道。
公共卫生作为一门学科对学术界以外的影响做出了重大贡献。为了支持这些影响的多样性，我们需要认识到本地化的小规模影响，以及社区和地方当局为基础的影响所需证据类型的差异。这还需要建立能力和资源，使公共卫生研究能够产生影响。最后，需要支持与地方当局的接触，并与对健康结果做出贡献的非卫生部门合作。
