College of Health and Medicine, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia; and Corresponding author. Email:
Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Sydney, Camperdown, NSW, Australia.
Aust Health Rev. 2021 Feb;45(1):74-76. doi: 10.1071/AH21016.
The global focus on nation states' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic has rightly highlighted the importance of science and evidence as the basis for policy action. Those with a lifelong passion for evidence-based policy (EBP) have lauded Australia's and other nations' policy responses to COVID-19 as a breakthrough moment for the cause. This article reflects on the complexity of the public policy process, the perspectives of its various actors, and draws on Alford's work on the Blue, Red and Purple zones to propose a more nuanced approach to advocacy for EBP in health. We contend that the pathway for translation of research evidence into routine clinical practice is relatively linear, in contrast to the more complex course for translation of evidence to public policy - much to the frustration of health researchers and EBP advocates. Cairney's description of the characteristics of successful policy entrepreneurs offers useful guidance to advance EBP and we conclude with proposing some practical mechanisms to support it. Finally, we recommend that researchers and policy makers spend more time in the Purple zone to enable a deeper understanding of, and mutual respect for, the unique contributions made by research, policy and political actors to sound public policy.
全球对各国应对 COVID-19 大流行的关注正确地强调了科学和证据作为政策行动基础的重要性。那些毕生致力于循证政策（EBP）的人称赞澳大利亚和其他国家对 COVID-19 的政策反应是该事业的一个突破时刻。本文反思了公共政策过程的复杂性、其各个参与者的观点，并借鉴了 Alford 关于蓝、红、紫区的工作，为卫生领域的 EBP 倡导提出了一种更细致入微的方法。我们认为，将研究证据转化为常规临床实践的途径相对是线性的，而将证据转化为公共政策的途径则更为复杂——这让卫生研究人员和 EBP 倡导者感到非常沮丧。Cairney 对成功的政策企业家的特征的描述为推进 EBP 提供了有用的指导，我们最后提出了一些实际的机制来支持它。最后，我们建议研究人员和政策制定者在紫色区域花费更多时间，以更深入地了解和相互尊重研究、政策和政治行为者为合理的公共政策所做出的独特贡献。
