Development of measurable indicators to enhance public health evidence-informed policy-making

Abstract

BackgroundEnsuring health policies are informed by evidence still remains a challenge despite efforts devoted to this aim. Several tools and approaches aimed at fostering evidence-informed policy-making (EIPM) have been developed, yet there is a lack of availability of indicators specifically devoted to assess and support EIPM. The present study aims to overcome this by building a set of measurable indicators for EIPM intended to infer if and to what extent health-related policies are, or are expected to be, evidence-informed for the purposes of policy planning as well as formative and summative evaluations.MethodsThe indicators for EIPM were developed and validated at international level by means of a two-round internet-based Delphi study conducted within the European project ‘REsearch into POlicy to enhance Physical Activity’ (REPOPA). A total of 82 researchers and policy-makers from the six European countries (Denmark, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, the United Kingdom) involved in the project and international organisations were asked to evaluate the relevance and feasibility of an initial set of 23 indicators developed by REPOPA researchers on the basis of literature and knowledge gathered from the previous phases of the project, and to propose new indicators.ResultsThe first Delphi round led to the validation of 14 initial indicators and to the development of 8 additional indicators based on panellists’ suggestions; the second round led to the validation of a further 11 indicators, including 6 proposed by panellists, and to the rejection of 6 indicators. A total of 25 indicators were validated, covering EIPM issues related to human resources, documentation, participation and monitoring, and stressing different levels of knowledge exchange and involvement of researchers and other stakeholders in policy development and evaluation.ConclusionThe study overcame the lack of availability of indicators to assess if and to what extent policies are realised in an evidence-informed manner thanks to the active contribution of researchers and policy-makers. These indicators are intended to become a shared resource usable by policy-makers, researchers and other stakeholders, with a crucial impact on fostering the development of policies informed by evidence.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12961-018-0323-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Role Of Measurable Indicators In Evidence-Informed Policy Making –Romanian Case Study

“…Two internet-based Delphi questionnaires (2015) followed by a half-a-day national conference (2016) were implemented in Romania and the other partner countries, as part of the REPOPA project (Tudisca et al, 2018). In this section, the methodology used for (1) the Delphi process conducted at international consortium level and for (2) the Romanian national conference will be described.…”

“…Consensus on high relevance and high feasibility was considered when an indicator met all the following three criteria: both medians were equal to or higher than three, the first quartile of the relevance was equal to or higher than three and the first quartile of feasibility was equal to or higher than two. Consensus on low relevance and low feasibility was considered when an indicator met the following criteria: both medians were equal to or lower than two (Tudisca et al, 2018;. The third face-to-face Delphi round consisted in a national conference preceded by an online preconference exercise where the final set of indicators (following the two internet-based Delphi rounds) were contextualised and further validated by national experts in each country (Aro et al, 2016b;Tudisca et al, 2016b).…”

“…The third face-to-face Delphi round consisted in a national conference preceded by an online preconference exercise where the final set of indicators (following the two internet-based Delphi rounds) were contextualised and further validated by national experts in each country (Aro et al, 2016b;Tudisca et al, 2016b). The aim of the national conference was to map the indicators to one or more policy phases where they would be most useful in each country setting (Tudisca et al, 2018). The mapping process started with an online pre-conference questionnaire.…”

“…Within REPOPA Work Package 4 -Implementation and guidance development (led by the National Research Council of Italy), Delphi method was applied in all REPOPA partner countries to build and contextualise a set of measurable indicators that can be used for the evidence-informed policy making, in particular in the health field (Tudisca et al, 2016a;Tudisca et al, 2018…”

Empowering Researchers and Knowledge-producing Organizations for Evidence-informed Health Policy Making: Interventions in the Iranian Health System

“…Studies and the research evidence can help health policymakers and managers to evaluate current systems and, design new policies and services based on their knowledge of failures and successes (9). In addition, evidence using enables policymakers to implement policies based on the best available evidence (10).…”