CBR can provide vital research evidence on the nature of health disparities and barriers to health equity. But CBR practitioners and advocates are not only interested in providing information about health disparities and the impact of social determinants on health. They want to have an impact on reducing health and economic disparities.
Most changes needed to reduce health disparities flow through government policy or programs. To influence policy development, CBR practitioners need to be able to:
- identify the policy implications of their research, and
translate these findings into analyses and - action recommendations that can be used to influence public policy.
We developed a 1/2 day workshop on tools and techniques to enhance the policy impact of CBR for the Spring 2006 conference of CCPH: Community-Campus Partnerships in Health. Here are the slides for the session. We hope they will be useful to fellow practitioners and we would be interested to hear if and how you used them to develop your own workshops.
We also provide on-site workshops that offer practical tools and techniques for community-based researchers. Our workshops help community-based researchers to hone their abilities to analyze the policy implications of their findings, and develop strategic approaches to getting these findings to decision-makers in ways that will have the most impact. Finally, we develop customized workshops for partner organizations in the health and social services fields.
Below are some knowledge excahnge and other resources to help CBR practitioners make an impact on public policy to reduce health disparities.
The Canadian Health Services Research Foundation publishes guides, reports and other resources on knowledge exchange and how to effectively get research to decision-makers. CHSRF has specific knowledge transfer and knowledge brokers pages with useful resources. See their database of tools, where CHSRF collects strategies, stories, frameworks, evaluation plans and other literature, on promoting and using research evidence in decision making.
The Institute for Work and Health has developed a practical and clear planning guide for knowledge transfer . The guide’s basic principle is that particular campaigns and methods, and overall knowledge exchange strategies, work very differently in different arenas. The guide focuses on effective knowledge exchange of clinical and related health research for health service providers or institutional decision-makers but the workbook is a useful tool on the policy front as well. It focuses on answering these questions: What is the message? Who is the intended audience? Who is the best messenger to get to that audience? What are the best methods for knowledge exchange? What would be the expected impact of successful knowledge exchange?
The Canadian Population Health Initiative, part of the Canadian Institute for Health Information , conducted a review of tools for knowledge exchange and best practices in policy research in 2002, Tools for Knowledge Exchange: Scanning Best Practices in Policy Research,
The Community-Campus Partnerships for Health has material on its site including Cassandra Ritas’ Speaking Truth, Creating Power guide to policy work for CBR practitioners.
The Kellogg Foundation has useful guides and toolkits on influencing public policy.
