A systematic review of barriers to and facilitators of the use of evidence by policymakers
By K. Oliver, Simon Innvar, T. Lorenc, J. Woodman, James Thomas. BMC Health Services Research, 2014
1,124 citations recorded by the source corpus.
BackgroundThe gap between research and practice or policy is often described as a problem. To identify new barriers of and facilitators to the use of evidence by policymakers, and assess the state of research in this area, we updated a systematic review.MethodsSystematic review. We searched online databases including Medline, Embase, SocSci Abstracts, CDS, DARE, Psychlit, Cochrane Library, NHSEED, HTA, PAIS, IBSS (Search dates: July 2000 - September 2012). Studies were included if they were primary research or systematic reviews about factors affecting the use of evidence in policy. Studies were coded to extract data on methods, topic, focus, results and population.Results145 new studies were identified, of which over half were published after 2010. Thirteen systematic reviews were included. Compared with the original review, a much wider range of policy topics was found. Although still primarily in the health field, studies were also drawn from criminal justice, traffic policy, drug policy, and partnership working. The most frequently reported barriers to evidence uptake were poor access to good quality relevant research, and lack of timely research output. The most frequently reported facilitators were collaboration between researchers and policymakers, and improved relationships and skills. There is an increasing amount of research into new models of knowledge transfer, and evaluations of interventions such as knowledge brokerage.ConclusionsTimely access to good quality and relevant research evidence, collaborations with policymakers and relationship- and skills-building with policymakers are reported to be the most important factors in influencing the use of evidence. Although investigations into the use of evidence have spread beyond the health field and into more countries, the main barriers and facilitators remained the same as in the earlier review. Few studies provide clear definitions of policy, evidence or policymaker. Nor are empirical data about policy processes or implementation of policy widely available. It is therefore difficult to describe the role of evidence and other factors influencing policy. Future research and policy priorities should aim to illuminate these concepts and processes, target the factors identified in this review, and consider new methods of overcoming the barriers described.
Subfields: General Health Professions, Statistics and Probability
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/355bfb139a7ef6d65577e3c29901b67743adc4af
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In General Health Professions
In Statistics and Probability
Citations in the corpus
- Realist review (2021, background): “For research to have more impact on the development and implementation of behaviour change programmes, there is a need to know more than the effect size of an intervention (Fox, 2017; Oliver et al., 2014).”
- Education for AI, not AI for Education: The Role of Education and Ethics in National AI Policy Strategies (2021, background): “Timing is critical as well, as lack of timely access is one of the most prominent barriers to policy-maker use of evidence (Oliver et al. 2014).”
- Three habits of successful policy entrepreneurs (2018, background): “The absence of good timing is listed frequently as a major barrier to the use of scientific evidence in policy, prompting scholars to recognise the need for good networks to help spot opportunities, while recognising the ‘serendipitous nature of the policy process’ (Oliver et al, 2014a, 4).”