Articles

Applying systems thinking to knowledge mobilisation in public health

Knowledge mobilisation (KM) is a vital strategy in efforts to improve public health policy and practice. Linear models describing knowledge transfer and translation have moved towards multi-directional and com...

Authors: Abby Haynes, Lucie Rychetnik, Diane Finegood, Michelle Irving, Louise Freebairn and Penelope Hawe

Developing strategies to attract, retain and support midwives in rural fragile settings: participatory workshops with health system stakeholders in Ituri Province, Democratic Republic of Congo

Midwifery plays a vital role in the quality of care as well as rapid and sustained reductions in maternal and newborn mortality. Like most other sub-Saharan African countries, the Democratic Republic of Congo ...

Authors: Amuda Baba, Tim Martineau, Sally Theobald, Paluku Sabuni, Marie Muziakukwa Nobabo, Ajaruva Alitimango, John Kisembo Katabuka and Joanna Raven

Operationalising health systems thinking: a pathway to high effective coverage

The global health community has recognised the importance of defining and measuring the effective coverage of health interventions and their implementation strength to monitor progress towards global mortality...

Authors: Lara M. E. Vaz, Lynne Franco, Tanya Guenther, Kelsey Simmons, Samantha Herrera and Stephen N. Wall

Attempt to assess Canada’s expertise in global health research falls short

The recent article by Nagi et al. (Health Res Policy Syst 18:37, 2020) considerably underestimates the size of the global health research community in Canada as well as its geographical distribution, its breadth ...

Authors: Theresa W. Gyorkos

Limitations in a rapid environmental scan of global health research expertise point to the need for more open data

Authors: Ranjana Nagi, Susan Rogers Van Katwyk and Steven J. Hoffman

Barriers and enablers to source plasma donation by gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men under revised eligibility criteria: protocol for a multiple stakeholder feasibility study

Blood donation policy in Canada for gay, bisexual and other men who have had sex with men (gbMSM) has changed progressively in the last decade from indefinite deferral to 3-month deferral from last male-to-mal...

Authors: Elisabeth Vesnaver, Mindy Goldman, Sheila O’Brien, Paul MacPherson, Terrie Butler-Foster, Don Lapierre, Joanne Otis, Dana V. Devine, Marc Germain, Andrew Rosser, Richard MacDonagh, Taylor Randall, William Osbourne-Sorrell, Broderic Clement-Thorne, Taim Bilal Al-Bakri, Kyle A. Rubini…

Acute stroke awareness of family physicians: translation of policy to practice

Translating clinical guidelines into routine clinical practice is mandatory to achieve population level improvement of health. Emergence of specific therapy for acute stroke yielded the ‘time is brain’ concept...

Authors: Szilvia Harsanyi, Nandor Balogh, Laszlo Robert Kolozsvari, Laszlo Mezes, Csaba Papp and Judit Zsuga

Lessons learned from descriptions and evaluations of knowledge translation platforms supporting evidence-informed policy-making in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review

Knowledge translation (KT) platforms are organisations, initiatives and networks that focus on supporting evidence-informed policy-making at least in part about the health-system arrangements that determine wh...

Authors: Arun C. R. Partridge, Cristián Mansilla, Harkanwal Randhawa, John N. Lavis, Fadi El-Jardali and Nelson K. Sewankambo

A research agenda for non-communicable disease prevention and control in India

Non-communicable diseases contribute to 62% of total deaths in India; of concern are the preventable premature deaths, which account for a staggering 48% of mortality. The objective of this study was to establ...

Authors: Ishu Kataria, Mariam Siddiqui, Theresa Gillespie, Michael Goodman, Preet K. Dhillon, Carla Bann and Linda Squiers

Public health policy-making for hearing loss: stakeholders’ evaluation of a novel eHealth tool

Hearing loss (HL) affects 466 million people of all ages worldwide, with a rapidly increasing prevalence, and therefore requires appropriate public health policies. Multi-disciplinary approaches that make use ...

Authors: Giorgos Dritsakis, Lyubov Trenkova, Mariola Śliwińska-Kowalska, Dario Brdarić, Niels Henrik Pontoppidan, Panagiotis Katrakazas and Doris-Eva Bamiou

Correction to: a narrative review of economic constructs in commonly used implementation and scale-up theories, frameworks and models

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Authors: Vicki Brown, Huong Tran, Miranda Blake, Rachel Laws and Marj Moodie

Conceptualising characteristics of resources withdrawal from medical services: a systematic qualitative synthesis

Terms used to describe government-led resource withdrawal from ineffective and unsafe medical services, including ‘rationing’ and ‘disinvestment’, have tended to be used interchangeably, despite having distinc...

Authors: Mark Embrett, Glen E. Randall, John N. Lavis and Michelle L. Dion

The role of Allied Health Professions and Nursing Research Internships in developing a research culture: a mixed-methods exploration of stakeholder perspectives

Developing research capability and capacity within the healthcare professions is a challenge throughout diverse international settings. Within England, the National Institute for Health Research aimed to addre...

Authors: J. Nightingale, S. Fowler-Davis, K. Grafton, S. Kelly, C. Langham, R. Lewis, B. Bianco and D. Harrop

How might improved estimates of HIV programme outcomes influence practice? A formative study of evidence, dissemination and response

While HIV programmes have started millions of persons on life-saving antiretroviral therapy in Africa, longitudinal health information systems are frail and, therefore, data about long-term survival is often i...

Authors: Njekwa Mukamba, Laura K. Beres, Chanda Mwamba, Jeanna Wallenta Law, Stephanie M. Topp, Sandra Simbeza, Kombatende Sikombe, Nancy Padian, Charles B. Holmes, Elvin H. Geng and Izukanji Sikazwe

Making change last? Exploring the value of sustainability approaches in healthcare: a scoping review

Numerous models, tools and frameworks have been produced to improve the sustainability of evidence-based interventions. Due to the vast number available, choosing the most appropriate one is increasingly diffi...

Authors: L. Lennox, A. Linwood-Amor, L. Maher and J. Reed

Correction to: Self-care and remote care during pregnancy: a new paradigm?

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via the original article.

Authors: A. Metin Gülmezoglu, Anne Ammerdorffer, Manjulaa Narasimhan, Alyce N. Wilson, Joshua P. Vogel, Lale Say and Özge Tunçalp

Scaling up population health interventions from decision to sustainability – a window of opportunity? A qualitative view from policy-makers

While known efficacious preventive health interventions exist, the current capacity to scale up these interventions is limited. In recent years, much attention has focussed on developing frameworks and methods...

Authors: Karen Lee, Femke van Nassau, Anne Grunseit, Kathleen Conte, Andrew Milat, Luke Wolfenden and Adrian Bauman

Bridging the research–practice gap in healthcare: a rapid review of research translation centres in England and Australia

Large-scale partnerships between universities and health services are widely seen as vehicles for bridging the evidence–practice gap and for accelerating the adoption of new evidence in healthcare. Recently, d...

Authors: Tracy Robinson, Cate Bailey, Heather Morris, Prue Burns, Angela Melder, Charlotte Croft, Dmitrios Spyridonidis, Halyo Bismantara, Helen Skouteris and Helena Teede

Strengthening National Immunization Technical Advisory Groups in resource-limited settings: current and potential linkages with polio national certification committees

Countries are transitioning assets and functions from polio eradication to integrated immunization and surveillance activities. We assessed the extent of linkages between and perceptions of National Immunizati...

Authors: Sharon A. Greene, Blanche-Philomene Melanga Anya, Humayun Asghar, Irtaza A. Chaudhri, S. Deblina Datta, Morgane E. Donadel, Koffi Isidore Kouadio, Abigail M. Shefer and Kathleen F. Cavallaro

A narrative review of economic constructs in commonly used implementation and scale-up theories, frameworks and models

Translating research evidence into practice is challenging and, to date, there are relatively few public health interventions that have been effectively and cost-effectively implemented and delivered at scale....

Authors: Brown Vicki, Tran Huong, Blake Miranda, Laws Rachel and Moodie Marj

Policy dialogue and participation: a new way of crafting a national health financing strategy in Morocco

Policy dialogue for health policies has started to gain importance in recent years, especially for complex issues such as health financing. Moroccan health financing has faced several challenges during the las...

Authors: El Houcine Akhnif, Hafid Hachri, Abdelouahab Belmadani, Awad Mataria and Maryam Bigdeli

Defining key questions for clinical practice guidelines: a novel approach for developing clinically relevant questions

There is no standardised protocol for developing clinically relevant guideline questions. We aimed to create such a protocol and to apply it to developing a new guideline.

Authors: Samantha Chakraborty, Bianca Brijnath, Jacinta Dermentzis and Danielle Mazza

Assessing how information is packaged in rapid reviews for policy-makers and other stakeholders: a cross-sectional study

Rapid reviews (RRs) are useful products to healthcare policy-makers and other stakeholders, who require timely evidence. Therefore, it is important to assess how well RRs convey useful information in a format ...

Authors: Chantelle Garritty, Candyce Hamel, Mona Hersi, Claire Butler, Zarah Monfaredi, Adrienne Stevens, Barbara Nussbaumer-Streit, Wei Cheng and David Moher

Flipping the paradigm: a qualitative exploration of research translation centres in the United Kingdom and Australia

Over the past decade, Research Translation Centres (RTCs) have been established in many countries. These centres (sometimes referred to as Academic Health Science Centres) are designed to bring universities an...

Authors: Tracy Robinson, Helen Skouteris, Prue Burns, Angela Melder, Cate Bailey, Charlotte Croft, Dmitrios Spyridonidis and Helena Teede

Uncovering the processes of knowledge transformation: the example of local evidence-informed policy-making in United Kingdom healthcare

Healthcare policy-makers are expected to develop ‘evidence-based’ policies. Yet, studies have consistently shown that, like clinical practitioners, they need to combine many varied kinds of evidence and inform...

Authors: John Gabbay, Andrée le May, Catherine Pope, Emer Brangan, Ailsa Cameron, Jonathan H. Klein and Lesley Wye

Evaluation of the performance and achievements of the WHO Evidence-informed Policy Network (EVIPNet) Europe

The Evidence-informed Policy Network (EVIPNet) is one of the key mechanisms introduced by WHO to reduce the research-to-policy gap. EVIPNet Europe was launched in 2012. We evaluated the performance and achieve...

Authors: Louise Lester, Michelle M. Haby, Evelina Chapman and Tanja Kuchenmüller

Sex and gender analysis in knowledge translation interventions: challenges and solutions

Sex and gender considerations are understood as essential components of knowledge translation in the design, implementation and reporting of interventions. Integrating sex and gender ensures more relevant evid...

Authors: Amédé Gogovor, Tatyana Mollayeva, Nicole Etherington, Angela Colantonio and France Légaré

Self-care and remote care during pregnancy: a new paradigm?

Self-care interventions and remote care offer innovative and equitable ways to strengthen access to sexual and reproductive health services. Self-isolation during COVID-19 provided the opportunity for obstetri...

Authors: A. Metin Gülmezoglu, Anne Ammerdorffer, Manjulaa Narasimhan, Alyce N. Wilson, Joshua P. Vogel, Lale Say and Özge Tunçalp

An analysis of the strategic plan development processes of major public organisations funding health research in nine high-income countries worldwide

There have been claims that health research is not satisfactorily addressing healthcare challenges. A specific area of concern is the adequacy of the mechanisms used to plan investments in health research. How...

Authors: Cristina Morciano, Maria Cristina Errico, Carla Faralli and Luisa Minghetti

Coordinating the research response to COVID-19: Mali’s approach

Mali, like the rest of the world, has seen a rapid spread of COVID-19 since the first report of imported cases. Despite being a low-income country, Mali has leveraged scientific research resources via coordina...

Authors: Seydou Doumbia, Ydrissa Sow, Mahamadou Diakite and Chuen-Yen Lau

Transforming the practice of medicine through team science

The translation of biomedical research discoveries into clinical practice is marked by extended timelines (averaging 17 years) and multiple sequential process steps. However, even after a drug, device, diagnos...

Authors: Jason H. Pitzen, Heidi L. Dieter, Darren L. Gronseth, Amber K. Dahl, Venessa L. Boyle, Tharana Maran, C. Michel Harper Jr and Gregory J. Gores

Health research capacity of professional and technical personnel in a first-class tertiary hospital in northwest China: multilevel repeated measurement, 2013–2017, a pilot study

To explore the health research capacity (HRC) and factors associated with professional and technical personnel (PTP) in a first-class tertiary hospital in northwest China.

Authors: Peijing Yan, Yongfeng Lao, Zhenxing Lu, Xu Hui, Biao Zhou, Xinyu Zhu, Xiaojie Chen, Li Li, Zixuan Wang, Min Zhang and Kehu Yang

An expert-based mapping of healthcare system strategies to support rational drug prescribing in primary care across 13 European countries

Irrational prescribing has received increasing attention among policy-makers to improve drug safety and effectiveness while avoiding economic waste. The policies intended to rationalise prescribing have been g...

Authors: Alexandru M. Rotar, Michael J. van den Berg and Niek S. Klazinga

What should community organisations consider when deciding to partner with researchers? A critical reflection on the Zilla Budakattu Girijana Abhivrudhhi Sangha experience in Karnataka, India

Community organisations and community members are increasingly being involved in health research projects worldwide as part of the engagement movement. Achieving deeper forms of community engagement like partn...

Authors: Bridget Pratt, Tanya Seshadri and Prashanth N. Srinivas

A framework for explaining the role of values in health policy decision-making in Latin America: a critical interpretive synthesis

Although values underpin the goals pursued in health systems, including how health systems benefit the population, it is often not clear how values are incorporated into policy decision-making about health sys...

Authors: C. Marcela Vélez, Michael G. Wilson, John N. Lavis, Julia Abelson and Ivan D. Florez

Capacity for health economics research and practice in Jordan, Lebanon, the occupied Palestinian territories and Turkey: needs assessment and options for development

Capacity for health economics analysis and research is indispensable for evidence-informed allocations of scarce health resources; however, little is known about the experience and capacity strengthening prefe...

Authors: Adrian Gheorghe, Mohamed Gad, Sharif A. Ismail and Kalipso Chalkidou

Evaluation of the Cochrane Consumers and Communication Group’s systematic review priority-setting project

Health researchers and funders are increasingly consulting with stakeholders to set their research agendas but these activities are rarely evaluated. The Cochrane Consumers and Communication Group (CCCG) condu...

Authors: Anneliese Synnot, Allison Tong, Rebecca Ryan and Sophie Hill

Global research priorities for social, behavioural and community engagement interventions for maternal, newborn and child health

Social, behavioural and community engagement (SBCE) interventions are essential for global maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) strategies. Past efforts to synthesise research on SBCE interventions identi...

Authors: Geoffrey Chan, J. Douglas Storey, Manoja Kumar Das, Emma Sacks, Mira Johri, Tamar Kabakian-Khasholian, Deepak Paudel, Sachiyo Yoshida and Anayda Portela

Engaged scholarship and public policy decision-making: a scoping review

Engaged scholarship includes the coproduction and use of research by partnerships that blend research, policy and/or practice perspectives. This way of doing research attempts to bridge-the-gap between knowled...

Authors: Jessie-Lee D. McIsaac and Barbara L. Riley

Health technology assessment of biosimilars worldwide: a scoping review

Health technology assessment (HTA) should provide an assessment of a technology’s effects on health and of the related social, economic, organisational and ethical issues. HTA reports on biosimilars can specif...

Authors: Bruna de Oliveira Ascef, Ana Carolina de Freitas Lopes and Patrícia Coelho de Soárez

Four normative perspectives on public health policy-making and their preferences for bodies of evidence

Calls for evidence-informed public health policy-making often ignore that there are multiple, and often competing, bodies of potentially relevant evidence to which policy-makers have recourse in identifying po...

Authors: Casper G. Schoemaker, Jeanne van Loon, Peter W. Achterberg, Frank R. J. den Hertog, Henk Hilderink, Johan Melse, Robert A. A. Vonk and Hans van Oers

Indicators to evaluate organisational knowledge brokers: a scoping review

Knowledge translation (KT) is currently endorsed by global health policy actors as a means to improve outcomes by institutionalising evidence-informed policy-making. Organisational knowledge brokers, comprised...

Authors: Julia Scarlett, Birger C. Forsberg, Olivia Biermann, Tanja Kuchenmüller and Ziad El-Khatib

Developing co-funded multi-sectoral partnerships for chronic disease prevention: a qualitative inquiry into federal governmental public health staff experience

Multi-sectoral partnerships (MSPs) are frequently cited as a means by which governments can improve population health while leveraging the resources and expertise of the private and non-profit sectors. As part...

Authors: Lee M. Johnston, Laurie J. Goldsmith and Diane T. Finegood

Development of a knowledge translation taxonomy in the field of health prevention: a participative study between researchers, decision-makers and field professionals

The current literature lacks a detailed and standardised description of public health knowledge translation (KT) activities designed to be applied at local levels of health systems. As part of an ongoing resea...

Authors: Aurélie Affret, Ollivier Prigent, Marion Porcherie, Olivier Aromatario and Linda Cambon

Exploring how to sustain ‘place-based’ rural health academic research for informing rural health systems: a qualitative investigation

The field of rural health research is critical for informing health improvement in rural places but it involves researching in small teams and distributed sites that may have specific sustainability challenges...

Authors: Belinda O’Sullivan, Alice Cairns and Tiana Gurney

Capacity development in patient-oriented research: programme evaluation and impact analysis

National and provincial funding was invested to increase the quantity and quality of patient-oriented research (POR) across Canada. Capacity development became a priority to ensure all stakeholders were prepar...

Authors: Melanie King Rosario, Marilynne A. Hebert, Balreen Kaur Sahota and Dean Eurich

The opioid crisis: need for systems science research

The opioid epidemic in the United States has had a devastating impact on millions of people as well as on their families and communities. The increased prevalence of opioid misuse, use disorder and overdose in...

Authors: Mohammad S. Jalali, Michael Botticelli, Rachael C. Hwang, Howard K. Koh and R. Kathryn McHugh

The opioid crisis: a contextual, social-ecological framework

The prevalence of opioid use and misuse has provoked a staggering number of deaths over the past two and a half decades. Much attention has focused on individual risks according to various characteristics and ...

Authors: Mohammad S. Jalali, Michael Botticelli, Rachael C. Hwang, Howard K. Koh and R. Kathryn McHugh

Communities of practice in Alberta Health Services: advancing a learning organisation

In 2009, Alberta Health Services (AHS) became Canada’s first and largest fully integrated healthcare system, involving the amalgamation of nine regional health authorities and three provincial services. Within...

Authors: Anna M. Auer, Patricia Hanson, Barbara Brady-Fryer, Julie Alati-it and Allison L. Johnson

Policy learning and Universal Health Coverage in low- and middle-income countries

Learning is increasingly seen as an essential component to spur progress towards universal health coverage (UHC) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). However, learning remains an elusive concept, with ...

Authors: Joël Arthur Kiendrébéogo, Manuela De Allegri and Bruno Meessen