A translational routemap for public health researchPeter CraigProgramme Manager, MRC PHSRN

Knowledge Transfer Scotland, Heriot Watt University, 23 April 2010

The MRC Population Health Sciences Research Network

A network of MRC Units and Centres

Established in 2005 with strategic grant of £2.5 million over five years (2006-11) to

• Add value to the MRC’s existing core investment in population health sciences

• Provide a co-ordinated voice on research and policy issues relating to population health

• Develop capacity in the population health sciences

Overall aims 2010-15

• the cost-effective delivery of a programme of ‘methodological knowledge transfer’ through projects, workshops and summer schools aimed at identifying, refining and disseminating best practice in population health science methods.

• This is an area where the network has already shown it can deliver, where it can make its most distinctive contribution in future, and which builds on, but is clearly distinct from the core-funded programmes of network members.

• We will develop and deliver this programme by collaborating with other key MRC and non MRC-funded groups working in the population health sciences.

The PHSRN and knowledge translation

• One of five themes used to organise activity, 2005-9

• Workshops on ‘scientists as advocates for public health’ and perceptions of the MMR vaccine.

• Projects on knowledge transfer and communicating certainty and uncertainty in public health messages

• Development of a translational framework for public health research

• Production of guidance, toolkits, contributions to a wide range of consultations, calls, etc.

• ‘Methodological knowledge transfer’ – main focus of activity, 2010-15

Knowledge transfer: what do health researchers and funders actually do?

Further outputs:

Effects of a financial incentive on health researchers' response to an online survey: a randomised controlled trial

Dissemination: researchers should do what? A systematic review of conceptual planning frameworks.

Does knowledge transfer extend beyond publications to health policy - a survey of a cross section of publicly funded health research in the UK.

Pathway for the translation of basic and clinical research into clinical practice

The Cooksey model

Does this apply to public health?

• Endpoint of public health research is improving population health, rather than clinical practice or healthcare delivery

• Basic sciences of public health include epidemiology, psychology, economics and sociology, as well as laboratory sciences

• These basic sciences play a part throughout the framework, rather than contributing only to the development of interventions

• Public health research seeks to identify environmental as well as individual determinants of health; interventions also work at both levels

• Evidence is often heterogeneous in terms of methods as well as quality, and requires flexible and inclusive methods of evidence synthesis

• Public health interventions often arise from sources other than research evidence, and in areas of public policy other than ‘health’

No!

Research influences – and is influenced by - behaviour, policy and practice, and ultimately population health, in a variety of direct and indirect ways, rather than a straightforward translation of evidence into practice.

A non-linear framework for thinking about translation of public health research

Cooksey pathway

EBP model

Implications

• Measuring the impact of public health research is complex: simple ‘payback’ models will underestimate it*

• The framework implies a research agenda: translation occurs throughout the framework, and funders should support research to understand, and make best use of, the whole range of translational processes.

* (the same applies to HSR, see Black N 2009. Health services research: the gradual encroachment of ideas. Journal of Health Services Research and Policy 14 120-3)

Further information

www.populationhealthsciences.org