Predicting research use in a public health policy environment: results of a logistic regression analysis.

Pauline Zardo,Alex Collie

doi:10.1186/s13012-014-0142-8

Pauline Zardo, Alex Collie

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s13012-014-0142-8

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Abstract

BackgroundUse of research evidence in public health policy decision-making is affected by a range of contextual factors operating at the individual, organisational and external levels. Context-specific research is needed to target and tailor research translation intervention design and implementation to ensure that factors affecting research in a specific context are addressed. Whilst such research is increasing, there remain relatively few studies that have quantitatively assessed the factors that predict research use in specific public health policy environments.MethodA quantitative survey was designed and implemented within two public health policy agencies in the Australian state of Victoria. Binary logistic regression analyses were conducted on survey data provided by 372 participants. Univariate logistic regression analyses of 49 factors revealed 26 factors that significantly predicted research use independently. The 26 factors were then tested in a single model and five factors emerged as significant predictors of research over and above all other factors.ResultsThe five key factors that significantly predicted research use were the following: relevance of research to day-to-day decision-making, skills for research use, internal prompts for use of research, intention to use research within the next 12 months and the agency for which the individual worked.ConclusionsThese findings suggest that individual- and organisational-level factors are the critical factors to target in the design of interventions aiming to increase research use in this context. In particular, relevance of research and skills for research use would be necessary to target. The likelihood for research use increased 11- and 4-fold for those who rated highly on these factors. This study builds on previous research and contributes to the currently limited number of quantitative studies that examine use of research evidence in a large sample of public health policy and program decision-makers within a specific context. The survey used in this study is likely to be relevant for use in other public health policy contexts.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13012-014-0142-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Highlights

Use of research evidence in public health policy decision-making is affected by a range of contextual factors operating at the individual, organisational and external levels
The five key factors that significantly predicted research use were the following: relevance of research to day-to-day decision-making, skills for research use, internal prompts for use of research, intention to use research within the 12 months and the agency for which the individual worked. These findings suggest that individual- and organisational-level factors are the critical factors to target in the design of interventions aiming to increase research use in this context
This study builds on previous research and contributes to the currently limited number of quantitative studies that examine use of research evidence in a large sample of public health policy and program decision-makers within a specific context

Summary

Introduction

Use of research evidence in public health policy decision-making is affected by a range of contextual factors operating at the individual, organisational and external levels. Context-specific research is needed to target and tailor research translation intervention design and implementation to ensure that factors affecting research in a specific context are addressed. And in Australia, governments are investing in efforts to try and increase evidence-informed public health policy and program decision-making through the establishment of specific research centres and providing funding to support the translation of research [1,2,3]. Context-specific research on factors affecting research use is needed to inform the design and implementation of research translation interventions so that they can be targeted and tailored to the needs of a specific context [10]. To develop a detailed understanding of context, there is a need to understand the factors that operate at these different levels

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