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This introductory chapter begins with a brief discussion on the purpose of the book, which is to provide readers with the ‘hands-on’ knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to deliver research for health policy, in the government, not-for-profit, and private sectors. It focuses on describing research for health policy in a heuristic, practice-based way. The chapter then discusses two assertions underpinning the approach in the book and three different kinds of sources used throughout the volume.

This chapter describes some ways that families who care for children with mental, emotional, or behavioral problems; youth who are served by the children's mental health system; and researchers, have collaborated in research and evaluation. Topics covered include historical development of consumer involvement in mental health research; a system of care evaluation in Clark County, Washington; family involvement in systems of care, the youth-driven research project, and evaluator perspectives on collaboration with family members.

This chapter discusses the institutionalization of community action in public health. To say that some kind of activity is “institutionalized” means that it has become “routine,” a relatively stable and fixed part of supported and required behavior. Community participation in public health activities and policy has become supported and mandated in the public health funded programs of the U.S. government. Social movements have been deeply intertwined with the public health profession and state policy. The paper discusses the adoption, standardization, and dissemination of community action in its several forms (e.g., community organizing, community coalitions, and community‐based participatory research). They are able to chart the dramatic increase in the funding of community action methods, using a data base of federally funded biomedical research.

This chapter advances the development of successful partnerships between practitioners and researchers by (1) identifying the need for a two-way exchange of knowledge between practice and research; (2) highlighting the value of researcher-practitioner partnerships; (3) presenting an illustrative case study of one agency's successful work in this area; and (4) making recommendations for change.

There is a large range of national public funding support for health research across countries. By contrast, allocations for overall funding for health literacy and related research areas are limited. Health research agendas and resource allocation are policy decisions that involve the use of power. There are strong incentives to maintain the status quo, especially in the face of level or declining funding. Many macro- and microlevel factors influence research agendas and funding support. These range from broader societal values and health care delivery systems, to the individuals themselves who make decisions. There is a great need for more research in areas such as implementation of simple interventions in “real-world” settings and the effects of communication technologies on receipt, processing, and seeking of health information by the public. There is some reason for optimism: awareness and support for more transdisciplinary and applied research relevant to health literacy is increasing, and some countries have adopted effective approaches to assess new health technology and treatment prior to introduction into clinical and public health practice.

This chapter examines some of the difficult issues at the intersection of public health, data uses, and individual interests. It describes some of the fundamental uses and disclosures of identifiable health data for public health practice and public health research, and presents legal structures and challenges that underlie public health data uses and disclosures. It briefly explores relevant constitutional sources of public health powers and privacy. Core statutory and regulatory legal protections for data uses related to public health research (i.e., federal, state, and local human subjects research protections) and public health privacy (i.e., privacy laws at the federal, state, and local levels) are examined. This includes a core analysis of the public health implications of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy Rule. The chapter concludes by addressing one of the key questions critical to each of these legal approaches: What are the distinctions between public health practice and research activities? It sets forth enhanced methodology on the basis of a 2004 report of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) for distinguishing these activities.

This chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book brings together an international group that includes anthropologists, historians, and an epidemiologist and human-rights scholar to produce an ethnographic critique of the contemporary global health enterprise. These contributors are engaged in both empirical and theoretical investigations of global health-related initiatives and epistemologies, and are concerned with the actual impacts of these initiatives on care, health systems, and governance. The book emphasizes ethnography as a crucial methodological tool for achieving better comprehension of health services at all levels of analysis and advocates anthropological case studies and cross-cultural analysis as foundational to a much-needed critical global health perspective. The book offers innovative ways of thinking about older debates in light of emerging realities, and it sets a new agenda for research in global health, one aimed at a more comprehensive framework for understanding the human, technical, and political issues involved.

This chapter highlights some key approaches in designing research methods for health policy; the critical issues of validity and credibility, as well as key features of innovative approaches to health policy decision support.

This chapter presents the current challenges facing legislators, regulators, researchers, and ethics committees in determining how and when to include women appropriately in research, and ensure that sex analysis of research results is routinely performed. It offers five issues that require attention to address these challenges: that national regulatory statements could provide researchers with definitions of the terms ‘sex’ , ‘gender’, and ‘gender equity’ in research; that sex and gender analysis should be built into health research protocols; the lack of internationally comparable data regarding the rates of inclusion of men and women presents a major hurdle for analysing the efficacy of different regulatory strategies; the accessibility of data would be facilitated by a requirement for publication of the results of health research to include descriptions of sex analysis performed on research data; and that institutional review boards, research ethics committees, and researchers themselves require better education about the scientific and ethical importance of including of women in clinical research.

This chapter presents definitions that reflect the terminology used in the most frequently cited manuscripts and reports on dissemination and implementation (D&I) research in health and in funding announcements of major federal funding agencies. The chapter is organized as follows. The first section provides definition for the most commonly used terms in D&I research. The second section identifies stages of the research process continuum and their relationship to D&I -related activities and defines varieties of Type 1 and 2 research. In the third section, the most commonly used models and frameworks that can inform planning and evaluation activities in D&I research are discussed. The fourth section defines key factors that are related to the success, speed, and extent of D&I. Finally, the fifth section summarizes important concepts of study design and measurement that should be considered when evaluating D&I research.

The use of research evidence in public health policy poses many challenges. This chapter introduces these challenges, drawing on examples from international, national, and local policy-making. It first considers the need for evidence within policy processes, and then goes on to discuss the usefulness of the current evidence base, highlighting some of the gaps. It discusses some of the challenges in using and developing the evidence base, illustrating the clashes between research, policy cultures and processes, and where progress is being made. Finally, it considers how policy influences research and how this field may develop in the future.

The task of using evidence to influence health policy makers is best approached with the benefit of insight into what changes policy. This chapter offers conceptual and practical understandings of how health policy works, and what changes it. Topics discussed include: models of research in policy change, kinds and uses of information for policy, what is policy-relevant research?, barriers to research-policy transfer, and what researchers can do to shape policy.

This chapter argues that the challenge of ethnicity and health research includes demonstrating tangible health benefits in addition to satisfying curiosity. The full range of public health science research methods — qualitative, case-histories, case series, analysis of routine statistics, case control studies, cohort studies, trials — and medical sciences, are potentially applicable to ethnicity and health. Topics discussed include a brief history of health research on ethnicity and race with a racist intent or outcome; lessons from racist research; the potential scientific benefits of studying ethnic variations in health and disease; and the strengths and weaknesses of the range of methods available for the study of ethnic variations in health and disease.

This chapter identifies critical challenges, tasks, sources, methods, and strategies for reviewing in policy-relevant research. It offers exemplars of policy-relevant reviews that extend and highlight this discussion. The aim is to identify possible best practice for such comparative literature analyses, including from the international scholarly literature across the disciplines.

This chapter highlights different approaches for conducting powerful community consultations for evidence-based health policy. It explores the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to consensus-building, which include delivering valid data about community opinion on different policy options (consensus-finding), as well as helping develop community consensus about a particular policy option (consensus-making). This chapter offers discussion of the blend of technical research and people skills needed in conducting such consultations, as well as the ethical dimensions of such research.

This chapter describes and offers practical strategies for the art of delivering written policy arguments. It analyses techniques for writing the report in a way that delivers the policy story, from understanding the nature of political reasoning in policy-making contexts, to special issues in data presentation for policymakers. It emphasizes that delivering findings in this genre is not just about research rigour; it is about particular strategic written communication skills.

This chapter traces the development of epidemiology in Finland. It argues that epidemiology and health services research are both more developed and used more in Finland than in many other European countries. The current relative strength is related to factors including the early adoption of a systematic approach to disease control to control tuberculosis; since the 1940s visionary paediatricians were able to push for the creation of a nationwide network of child welfare clinics; and after the Second World War the whole of Finnish society expressed an urge for international contacts, which led amongst other things to post-graduate public health training in the USA and the UK.

This chapter explores the ethical issues that arise in the course of undertaking epidemiological and international health research, focusing on ethical issues that the researcher inevitably has to grapple with during the conduct of research. These include how to plan and develop international research, the value systems of different cultures and countries, particular issues in low-income countries such as those around priority-setting, equity, and consent, external sponsorship and ethical review of research, and what happens when the research is over. It argues that although following guidelines and adhering to the law are both important, it is critical that the researcher approaches the research with an open mind and willing heart. There is no replacement whatsoever for thoughtfulness, sensitivity, and treating people with respect and dignity.