Partnering Healthy@Work: an Australian university—government partnership facilitating policy-relevant research

Abstract

Research funding is increasingly supporting collaborations between knowledge users and researchers. Partnering Healthy@Work (pH@W), an inaugural recipient of funding through Australia's Partnership for Better Health Grants scheme, was a 5-year partnership between the Menzies Institute for Medical Research, University of Tasmania and the Tasmanian State Service (TSS). The partnerships purpose was to evaluate a comprehensive workplace health promotion programme (Healthy@Work) targeting 30 000 public sector employees; generating new knowledge and influencing workplace health promotion policy and decision-making. This mixed methods study evaluates the partnership between policy-makers and academics and identifies strategies that enabled pH@W to deliver key project outcomes. A pH@W document review was conducted, two partnership assessment tools completed and semi-structured interviews conducted with key policy-makers and academics. Analysis of the partnership assessment tools and interviews found that pH@W had reached a strong level of collaboration. Policy-relevant knowledge was generated about the health of TSS employees and their engagement with workplace health promotion. Knowledge exchange of a conceptual and instrumental nature occurred and was facilitated by the shared grant application, clear governance structures, joint planning, regular information exchange between researchers and policy-makers and research student placements in the TSS. Flexibility and acknowledgement of different priorities and perspectives of partner organizations were identified as critical factors for enabling effective partnership working and research relevance. Academic-policy-maker partnerships can be a powerful mechanism for improving policy relevance of research, but need to incorporate strategies that facilitate regular input from researchers and policy-makers in order to achieve this.

Engaged scholarship and public policy decision-making: a scoping review

“…One study discussed the lack of clarity of their action research methodology, which required more meetings to guide the management team [ 37 ]. Tran et al [ 41 ] commented on the differences in perspectives that may create challenges for collaboration, whereas other studies discussed the importance of flexibility in partnerships to allow for acknowledgement and appreciation of cultural differences among stakeholders [ 35 , 38 ]. Prior experience or relationships among stakeholders and credibility of the researcher were reported to also facilitate partnership development [ 34 , 38 ].…”

A mixed-methods evaluation using effectiveness perception surveys, social network analysis, and county-level health statistics: A pilot study of eight rural Indiana community health coalitions

“…Finally, our work shares several similarities and differences with existing mixed-methods partnership evaluation efforts. Like others (Bowen and Martens, 2006) (Simmons et al, 2015) (Manitoba, Canada) (Bowen and Martens, 2006), the Tampa Bay Community Cancer Networks (Florida, USA) (Simmons et al, 2015), Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities (49 communities in the United States and Puerto Rico) (Brownson et al, 2015), and Partnering Healthy@Work (Tasmania, Australia) (Jose et al, 2017), we have administered partnership surveys and, like the Tampa Bay Community Cancer Networks (Florida, USA) (Simmons et al, 2015) we also performed SNA, all of which we plan to track over time. While we rely on anecdotal evidence from Extension Educators to interpret our findings, the researchers of the above communityengaged partnerships conducted systematic, semi-structured key-informant interviews, which strengthened the rigor of their report.…”

“…Brownson et al, 2015) (Jose et al, 2017), we are engaging our community partners in an iterative feedback evaluation loop, disseminating our findings to them, making recommendations for best practices, and monitoring programmatic change. Similar to The Need to Know Project…”

A qualitative investigation of the health economic impacts of bariatric surgery for obesity and implications for improved practice in health economics

“…Additionally, recent evidence of partnership arrangements between academics and policymakers, that is, knowledge users and researchers, can be a powerful mechanism for improving the policy relevance of research (Jose et al, ). This study is part of a broader collaborative partnership arrangement between key government policymakers and researchers.…”

“…There is also a call for health economists to implement mixed‐methods policy‐relevant research that is embedded in and derived from real‐world policy settings (Coast et al, ; Daniels et al, ; Obermann et al, ). Mixed‐methods policy‐relevant and translatable research can be successfully generated through research partnerships between knowledge users (e.g., government) and academic researchers (Jose et al, ).…”