President's column: How can we reduce the knowledge gap between public health research and policy/practice?

Abstract

Public health has been defined as an integrated challenge to improve the health of a population. Successful policies towards this end call for effective interaction within the triangle of public health research, policy, and practice (triangulation) at all levels of society and across all sectors and disciplines involved. As previous EUPHA conferences have shown European public health research has improved continuously in scope, quality, and quantity. But there exists a significant gap between research on the one side and policy and practice on the other.1 The three fields tend to be rather disconnected from each other. By tradition public health research is focusing on research questions formulated within the research community and not on the actual questions within policy and practice. According to EUPHA's 10 Statements on the Future of Public Health in Europe2 research should focus on the needs of policy and practice, and researchers should learn how to interact with politicians and practitioners. Fostering triangulation raises two challenging questions: How can we orient research towards the needs of public health policy and practice? How can important research knowledge be communicated to and implemented within the communities of public health policy and practice? Today, most of public health research addresses the development and treatment of disease (pathogenesis and reduction of disease risks). Knowledge coming out of disease research is important for strengthening the public health function of the medical care system. But it tells us little about the development of population health and ageing. There is much consensus that policy makers and practitioners do need a far better knowledge base related to the development and the determinants of positive health (salutogenesis and health resources) and the effectiveness and efficiency of health policies as well as health promotion, disease prevention, and disease care. Research findings in public health …