scholarly journals Effectiveness of Technology-Enabled Knowledge Translation Strategies in Improving the Use of Research in Public Health: Systematic Review

10.2196/17274 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. e17274
Author(s):  
Alison Brown ◽  
Courtney Barnes ◽  
Judith Byaruhanga ◽  
Matthew McLaughlin ◽  
Rebecca K Hodder ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Knowledge Translation ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Public Health Policy ◽  
Randomized Trials ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Or Practice

Background Knowledge translation (KT) aims to facilitate the use of research evidence in decision making. Changes in technology have provided considerable opportunities for KT strategies to improve access and use of evidence in decision making by public health policy makers and practitioners. Despite this opportunity, there have been no reviews that have assessed the effects of digital technology-enabled KT (TEKT) in the field of public health. Objective This study aims to examine the effectiveness of digital TEKT strategies in (1) improving the capacity for evidence-based decision making by public health policy makers and practitioners, (2) changing public health policy or practice, and (3) changes in individual or population health outcomes. Methods A search strategy was developed to identify randomized trials assessing the effectiveness of digital TEKT strategies in public health. Any primary research study with a randomized trial design was eligible. Searches for eligible studies were undertaken in multiple electronic bibliographic databases (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online [MEDLINE], Excerpta Medica dataBASE [EMBASE], PsycINFO, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature [CINAHL], and Scopus) and the reference lists of included studies. A hand search of 2 journals (Implementation Science and Journal of Medical Internet Research) and a gray literature search were also conducted. Pairs of independent review authors screened studies, assessed the risk of bias, and extracted data from relevant studies. Results Of the 6819 citations screened, 8 eligible randomized trials were included in the review. The studies examined the impact of digital TEKT strategies on health professionals, including nurses, child care health consultants, physiotherapists, primary health care workers, and public health practitioners. Overall, 5 of the interventions were web-training programs. The remaining 3 interventions included simulation games, access to digital resource materials and the use of tailored messaging, and a web-based registry. The findings suggest that digital TEKT interventions may be effective in improving the knowledge of public health professionals, relative to control, and may be as effective as a face-to-face KT approach. The effectiveness of digital TEKT strategies relative to a control or other digital KT interventions on measures of health professional self-efficacy to use evidence to enhance practice behavior or behavioral intention outcomes was mixed. The evidence regarding the effects on changes to health policy or practice following exposure to digital TEKT was mixed. No trials assessed the effects on individual or population-level health outcomes. Conclusions This review is the first to synthesize the effectiveness of digital TEKT interventions in a public health setting. Despite its potential, relatively few trials have been undertaken to investigate the impacts of digital TEKT interventions. The findings suggest that although a digital TEKT intervention may improve knowledge, the effects of such interventions on other outcomes are equivocal.

scholarly journals Effectiveness of Technology-Enabled Knowledge Translation Strategies in Improving the Use of Research in Public Health: Systematic Review (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Brown ◽  
Courtney Barnes ◽  
Judith Byaruhanga ◽  
Matthew McLaughlin ◽  
Rebecca K Hodder ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Knowledge Translation ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Public Health Policy ◽  
Randomized Trials ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Or Practice

BACKGROUND Knowledge translation (KT) aims to facilitate the use of research evidence in decision making. Changes in technology have provided considerable opportunities for KT strategies to improve access and use of evidence in decision making by public health policy makers and practitioners. Despite this opportunity, there have been no reviews that have assessed the effects of digital technology-enabled KT (TEKT) in the field of public health. OBJECTIVE This study aims to examine the effectiveness of digital TEKT strategies in (1) improving the capacity for evidence-based decision making by public health policy makers and practitioners, (2) changing public health policy or practice, and (3) changes in individual or population health outcomes. METHODS A search strategy was developed to identify randomized trials assessing the effectiveness of digital TEKT strategies in public health. Any primary research study with a randomized trial design was eligible. Searches for eligible studies were undertaken in multiple electronic bibliographic databases (Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online [MEDLINE], Excerpta Medica dataBASE [EMBASE], PsycINFO, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature [CINAHL], and Scopus) and the reference lists of included studies. A hand search of 2 journals (Implementation Science and Journal of Medical Internet Research) and a gray literature search were also conducted. Pairs of independent review authors screened studies, assessed the risk of bias, and extracted data from relevant studies. RESULTS Of the 6819 citations screened, 8 eligible randomized trials were included in the review. The studies examined the impact of digital TEKT strategies on health professionals, including nurses, child care health consultants, physiotherapists, primary health care workers, and public health practitioners. Overall, 5 of the interventions were web-training programs. The remaining 3 interventions included simulation games, access to digital resource materials and the use of tailored messaging, and a web-based registry. The findings suggest that digital TEKT interventions may be effective in improving the knowledge of public health professionals, relative to control, and may be as effective as a face-to-face KT approach. The effectiveness of digital TEKT strategies relative to a control or other digital KT interventions on measures of health professional self-efficacy to use evidence to enhance practice behavior or behavioral intention outcomes was mixed. The evidence regarding the effects on changes to health policy or practice following exposure to digital TEKT was mixed. No trials assessed the effects on individual or population-level health outcomes. CONCLUSIONS This review is the first to synthesize the effectiveness of digital TEKT interventions in a public health setting. Despite its potential, relatively few trials have been undertaken to investigate the impacts of digital TEKT interventions. The findings suggest that although a digital TEKT intervention may improve knowledge, the effects of such interventions on other outcomes are equivocal.

scholarly journals 22.B. Workshop: Behavioural insights and public health

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Knowledge Translation ◽  
Behaviour Change ◽  
Public Health Policy ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Behavioural Insights ◽  
Behaviour Change Counselling ◽  
Behavioural Sciences

Abstract Many of today's most pressing public health challenges have a strong behavioural component. Behavioural, psychosocial, and environmental factors play a major role in the development and progression of chronic diseases. Eliminating those risks would make it possible to prevent at least 80% of cardiovascular diseases, 75% of diabetes, and 40% of cancers. Behavioural insights provide an empirically informed perspective on how individuals make decisions, including the important recognition that even subtle changes in the environment can have meaningful impacts on behaviour. This workshop will provide examples from the literature and recent government initiatives that incorporate concepts from behavioural sciences in order to improve health, decision-making, and government efficiency. The examples highlight the potential for behavioural sciences to improve the effectiveness of public health policy at low cost. Although incorporating insights from behavioural sciences into public health policy has the potential to improve population health, its integration into government public health programs and policies requires careful design and continual evaluation of such interventions. Limitations and drawbacks of the approach will be discussed. The aim of this workshop is to broaden our understanding of measures that have originated from behavioural sciences and have a lot to offer to public health. This workshop also seeks to contribute to capacity building in knowledge translation and evidence-informed decision-making in public health. The workshop will consist of five presentations providing an overview of topical issues in the field of behaviour change and knowledge translation, followed by an interactive audience discussion. The first presentations will provide insights into current behaviour change theories. The second presentation will discuss the possibilities of using behaviour change principles in the development and adoption of health policies showcasing the recently adopted Canadian Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation Guide and the Food Guide. The third presentation will highlight the challenges in tackling physician's ability to effectively conduct behaviour change counselling with their patients in the context of chronic disease prevention. The fourth presentation will introduce the free academic meta-search engine - Motrial, which has a great potential in evaluating the randomized controlled trials and fuelling meta-analyses and systematic reviews in return of better quality. The fifth presentation will introduce a novel WHO/Europe guide on brief interventions for NCDs risk factors. Further to the reflection on the current knowledge base, an audience discussion will give attendees the opportunity to share their opinions regarding challenges and opportunities in behaviour change and knowledge translation to improve people's health and well-being. Key messages The application of behavioural insights into public health has its opportunities and challenges. Because behavioural insights is a very promising, yet a relatively new field, the research literature remains thin, and policy can sometimes get ahead of science.

scholarly journals Public health decisions in the COVID-19 pandemic require more than ‘follow the science’

2021 ◽  
pp. medethics-2020-107134
Author(s):  
Thana Cristina de Campos-Rudinsky ◽  
Eduardo Undurraga
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
Public Health Policy ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Ethical Reasoning ◽  
Reliable Data ◽  
Good Decision

Although empirical evidence may provide a much desired sense of certainty amidst a pandemic characterised by uncertainty, the vast gamut of available COVID-19 data, including misinformation, has instead increased confusion and distrust in authorities’ decisions. One key lesson we have been gradually learning from the COVID-19 pandemic is that the availability of empirical data and scientific evidence alone do not automatically lead to good decisions. Good decision-making in public health policy, this paper argues, does depend on the availability of reliable data and rigorous analyses, but depends above all on sound ethical reasoning that ascribes value and normative judgement to empirical facts.

Researching Health Service Information Systems Development

2011 ◽  
pp. 598-615
Author(s):  
Said Shahtahmasebi
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Public Health Policy ◽  
Policy Formation ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
Service Information ◽  
Current Availability ◽  
Tangible Evidence ◽  
Small Change

Information is considered the currency within health systems. Numerous reorganisations and restructuring, coupled with many buzz words (e.g. evidence-based practice) and the various advancements in ICT (information and communication technology) are apparently designed to improve the utilisation of this currency. However, what constitutes information appears to vary between health professionals. For some, only the data derived from RCTs (randomized control trials) is considered evidence, for others it is the conclusions drawn from focus groups, whilst for others, finding information goes well beyond subjectivity and experimental design and comes from understanding human behaviour and other processes.Although advancements in ICT have greatly improved access to information (currency), the data often disguised as information appears only as small change. Restructuring and reorganizing have been used to inflate the value of this currency (information) leading to the replacement of information departments by the Public Health Intelligence Units or Observatories. However, a change in behaviour is difficult to bring about and manage, while it is easier to change the tools with which the tasks are carried out. It is all too easy to fall into the trap of reproducing what has been produced before by information departments only under a different guise, as well as using different configurations, software or updated hardware and ICT (e.g. the Internet). These units hardly concern themselves with exploring the underlying message of the data. A quick trawl of the web pages of these entities can be testimony to this fact. The process so far has been, in effect, one of test-tubing health outcomes and then extracting the data from the test tubes. Although we have been eager to embrace technological advancements and change, we have failed to monitor the impact and consequences of change on our behaviour and thus on health outcomes. This chapter will delve into the current availability of information for public health policy purposes and will argue its ineffectiveness as information/evidence in the context of human behaviour and social processes. Behaviour and processes are by nature dynamic. Specifically, the feedback effect, a feature of dynamic process, can have a profound attenuating effect on data that was once important, thereby affecting not only the shelf life of a policy but also its intended outcomes. Examples from published reports by public health intelligence units/observatories in New Zealand and the UK, plus references to teenage smoking and suicide, will be used to illustrate these concepts and issues. A conceptual but pragmatic model of data collection based on current health care data management systems will be argued as a way forward for translating data into information and tangible evidence with a view to informing the process of public health policy formation. This chapter discusses a holistic approach to identifying data needed as evidence to inform the process of policy formation/decision making as a conceptual model.

Breaking the back of love: attachment goes neuro-molecular

2019 ◽  
pp. 107-122
Author(s):  
Sue White ◽  
Matthew Gibson ◽  
David Wastell ◽  
Patricia Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Policy ◽  
Attachment Theory ◽  
Public Health Policy ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Developmental Neuroscience ◽  
Adverse Childhood ◽  
New Generation

This chapter explores how attachment theory is increasingly going ‘under the skin’, looking for fundamental biological mechanisms to explain behaviours and consequences. Attachment scholars and researchers have sought new alignments with developments in evolutionary biology and developmental neuroscience. All these domains — despite inconsistent findings, thorny issues relating to extrapolations from animal work, and problems with replication — are purported to provide further support for attachment theory's veracity. In addition, they dangle the tantalising prospects of better targeting of interventions and more efficacious clinical approaches to fixing the effects of disrupted attachments, including some normative and sensitive matters such as the onset of puberty, and what are somewhat euphemistically called ‘reproductive strategies’, often meaning girls having babies too early. This ‘new generation’ of biological reasoning looks to the molecular level to explain health inequalities, with the prevention of adverse childhood experiences on the ‘to do’ list for public health policy makers. This has profound potential implications for child welfare practices.

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