The George Institute for Global Health, Level 5, 1 King Street, Newtown, Sydney, NSW, 2042, Australia.
Hunter Medical Research Institute, School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Lot 1 Kookaburra Cct, New Lambton Heights, NSW, 2305, Australia.
Health Res Policy Syst. 2022 Oct 29;20(1):117. doi: 10.1186/s12961-022-00927-x.
One of the challenges for countries implementing food policy measures has been the difficulty in demonstrating impact and retaining stakeholder support. Consequently, research funded to help countries overcome these challenges should assess impact and translation into practice, particularly in low-resource settings. However, there are still few attempts to prospectively, and comprehensively, assess research impact. This protocol describes a study co-created with project implementers, collaborative investigators and key stakeholders to optimize and monitor the impact of a research project on scaling up food policies in Fiji.
To develop this protocol, our team of researchers prospectively applied the Framework to Assess the Impact from Translational health research (FAIT). Activities included (i) developing a logic model to map the pathway to impact and establish domains of benefit; (ii) identifying process and impact indicators for each of these domains; (iii) identifying relevant data for impact indicators and a cost-consequence analysis; and (iv) establishing a process for collecting quantitative and qualitative data to measure progress. Impact assessment data will be collected between September 2022 and December 2024, through reports, routine monitoring activities, group discussions and semi-structured interviews with key implementers and stakeholders. The prospective application of the protocol, and interim and final research impact assessments of each project stream and the project as a whole, will optimize and enable robust measurement of research impact.
By applying this protocol, we aim to increase understanding of pathways to impact and processes that need to be put in place to achieve this. This impact evaluation will inform future projects with a similar scope and will identify transferable and/or translatable lessons for other Pacific Island states and low- and middle-income countries.
实施食品政策措施的国家所面临的挑战之一是难以展示影响并保持利益相关者的支持。因此，为帮助国家克服这些挑战而提供资金的研究应评估影响和转化为实践，尤其是在资源有限的环境中。然而，仍很少有尝试前瞻性和全面地评估研究影响。本方案描述了一项与项目实施者、合作研究者和主要利益相关者共同创建的研究，旨在优化和监测一项研究项目对斐济扩大食品政策的影响。
为了制定本方案，我们的研究团队前瞻性地应用了转化健康研究影响评估框架（FAIT）。活动包括：（i）制定逻辑模型，以映射影响路径并确定受益领域；（ii）为每个领域确定过程和影响指标；（iii）确定影响指标和成本效益分析的相关数据；以及（iv）建立收集定量和定性数据以衡量进展的过程。影响评估数据将在 2022 年 9 月至 2024 年 12 月期间收集，通过报告、常规监测活动、与主要实施者和利益相关者的小组讨论和半结构化访谈进行。本方案的前瞻性应用以及对每个项目流和整个项目的中期和最终研究影响评估将优化并能够对研究影响进行有力的衡量。
通过应用本方案，我们旨在增进对影响途径和实现影响所需的过程的理解。这项影响评估将为具有类似范围的未来项目提供信息，并确定可用于其他太平洋岛国和中低收入国家的可转移或可翻译的经验教训。
