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Science, Advocacy and Health Policy

“Every branch of public health can point to the critical role of advocacy in translating research into policy, practice and sea changes in supportive public opinion... So why does the study and teaching of advocacy remain so neglected?” - Chapman, 2001

A great deal of public health and health services research is directly relevant to policy and/or practice, particularly as the World Health Organization (1998) has called for the adoption of ‘an evidence-based approach to health promotion policy and practice’.  Yet empirical studies continually demonstrate that a myriad of factors other than research influence policy and practice decisions.  This is despite the fact that countries including the UK, Canada and New Zealand have committed themselves to evidence-based policy and practice. A variety of accounts for this disjuncture exist, including a failure amongst public health researchers to sufficiently engage with policy audiences by, for example, undertaking advocacy activities, limitations in the available research evidence, policy inertia, ideological conflicts and the influence of wider interests. GPHU’s research involves exploring all of these issues by analysing the factors informing particular policy decisions.

• How can so much knowledge produce so few results? 30 years of health inequalities research and public policy in the UK
• Health inequalities in Scotland and England: The contrasting journeys of ideas from research into policy
• Research, Policy and Funding - Academic treadmills and the squeeze on intellectual spaces
• “We request that the UK Government promotes in international fora… the principles of better regulation to which it is committed, to ensure that all relevant stakeholders, including the tobacco industry, are properly consulted and listened to, now and in the future, on issues affecting their businesses.’’

This page was published on 13 December 2010