Framing research for state policymakers who place a priority on cancer

Abstract

Purpose Despite the potential for reducing the cancer burden via state policy change, few data exist on how best to disseminate research information to influence state legislators' policy choices. We explored: 1) the relative importance of core framing issues (source, presentation, timeliness) among policymakers who prioritize cancer and those who do not prioritize cancer and 2) the predictors of use of research in policymaking. Methods Cross-sectional data were collected from US state policymakers (i.e., legislators elected to state Houses or Senates) from January through October 2012 (n=862). One-way analysis of variance was performed to investigate the association of the priority of cancer variable with outcome variables. Multivariate logistic regression models examined predictors of the influence of research information. Results Legislators who prioritized cancer tended to rate characteristics that make research information useful higher than those who did not prioritize cancer. Among differences that were statistically significant were three items in the “source” domain (relevance, delivered by someone respected, supports one's own position), one item in the “presentation” domain (telling a story related to constituents), and two items in the “timeliness” domain (high current state priority, feasible when information is received). Participants who prioritized cancer risk factors were 80% more likely to rate research information as one of their top reasons for choosing an issue on which to work. Conclusions Our results suggest the importance of narrative forms of communication and that research information needs to be relevant to the policymakers' constituents in a brief, concise format.

Audience segmentation to disseminate behavioral health evidence to legislators: an empirical clustering analysis

“…Our study demonstrates the utility of empirical clustering approaches to audience segmentation in policy dissemination research. Compared to prior studies that used demographic separation approaches to identify audience segments of legislators [ 58 , 59 , 65 , 78 ], our empirical clustering approach produced a more nuanced understanding of how evidence about a specific issue (i.e., behavioral health) might be most effectively packaged for different types of legislators. Although our study was focused on legislators in the USA, dissemination studies targeting administrative (i.e., not elected) policymakers, such as those being conducted in Australia [ 79 ] and Canada [ 80 ], might consider how empirical clustering could be used to identify audience segments within government agencies.…”

“…Legislators were presented with a list of 19 health issues and selected up to three that were most important “for legislative action in [their] state.” This question and the list of health issues have been previously used in surveys of state legislators [ 58 , 59 ]. We classified each legislator according to whether they selected “mental health” or “substance abuse,” respectively.…”

Dissemination and Implementation Science Training Needs: Insights From Practitioners and Researchers

“…Thus, had more policymakers been included in the second phase of the study, the Communicating Research Findings cluster may have been rated as more important as well as difficult. 30 As concept mapping is a mixed methods approach for which the initial phase is driven by qualitative research, purposive rather than random sampling was used to select participants; thus, the participants may not be representative of researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. Further, data saturation, rather than a target sample, drove the sample size.…”

Comparison of Research Framing Preferences and Information Use of State Legislators and Advocates Involved in Cancer Control, United States, 2012–2013

“…Differences exist between policy topic areas in how acceptable they are perceived to be by policy makers (28) or how likely they are to be enacted (29), and different policy issues are associated with different policymaker research-framing preferences (18). In addition, high profile policy issues accompanied by high interest from media and the public may lead to more contested relationships between policy actors (25), changing the context in which research translation takes place.…”

“…To measure preferences for how research information is framed, we asked participants to rank a series of statements on a 5-point scale (1 = low, 5 = high) indicating how important it was to the participant that research information have a given characteristic. The research information characteristics represented 3 research information domains: source, presentation, and timeliness (18). …”