Increased use of knowledge translation strategies is associated with greater research impact on public health policy and practice: an analysis of trials of nutrition, physical activity, sexual health, tobacco, alcohol and substance use interventions

Luke Wolfenden,Alix Hall,Rachel Sutherland,Sam Mccrabb,Elizabeth Ditton,Serene Yoong,Christophe Lecathelinais,Nicole Nathan,Kaitlin Mooney,Rebecca Hodder,Sharleen Gonzalez

doi:10.1186/s12961-022-00817-2

Abstract

BackgroundGreater use of knowledge translation (KT) strategies is recommended to improve the research impact of public health trials. The purpose of this study was to describe (1) the research impact of setting-based public health intervention trials on public health policy and practice; (2) the association between characteristics of trials and their research impact on public health policy and practice; and (3) the association between the use of KT strategies and research impacts on public health policy and practice.MethodsWe conducted a survey of authors of intervention trials targeting nutrition, physical activity, sexual health, tobacco, alcohol or substance use. We assessed the use of KT strategies aligned to domains of the Knowledge-To-Action Framework. We defined “research impact” on health policy and practice as any one or more of the following: citation in policy documents or announcements, government reports, training materials, guidelines, textbooks or court rulings; or endorsement by a (non)governmental organization; use in policy or practice decision-making; or use in the development of a commercial resource or service.ResultsOf the included trials, the authors reported that 65% had one or more research impacts. The most frequently reported research impact was citation in a policy document or announcement (46%). There were no significant associations between the effectiveness of the intervention, trial risk of bias, setting or health risk and trial impact. However, for every one unit increase in the total KT score (range 0–8), reflecting greater total KT activity, the odds of a health policy or practice research impact increased by approximately 30% (OR = 1.30, 95% CI: 1.02, 1.66; p = 0.031). Post hoc examination of KT domain scores suggests that KT actions focused on providing tailored support to facilitate program implementation and greater use of research products and tools to disseminate findings to end-users may be most influential in achieving impact.ConclusionsTrials of public health interventions frequently have public health impacts, and the use of more comprehensive KT strategies may facilitate greater research impact.

Highlights

Greater use of knowledge translation (KT) strategies is recommended to improve the research impact of public health trials
While such estimates of research impact on public health policy and practice are highly variable, collectively they appear higher than commonly reported in other fields of medicine, which suggests that 14% of health innovations influence policy or practice, taking on average 17 years to do so [7,8,9,10]
Most trials conducted by included authors were randomized controlled trials (RCTs; 83%), were conducted in North America (34%), were effective with respect to their primary outcome (68%), and assessed the effects of nutrition and/or physical activity interventions (55%) (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Greater use of knowledge translation (KT) strategies is recommended to improve the research impact of public health trials. While such estimates of research impact on public health policy and practice are highly variable, collectively they appear higher than commonly reported in other fields of medicine, which suggests that 14% of health innovations influence policy or practice, taking on average 17 years to do so [7,8,9,10]. Considerable scope remains to improve and better understand the impact of public health research

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