Strengthening partnerships between substance use researchers and policy makers to take advantage of a window of opportunity

Abstract

Background The National Institute on Drug Abuse has identified a persistent research-to-practice gap in the implementation of evidence-based prevention and treatment programs for substance use disorder. To identify mechanisms to close this gap, we sought to obtain and characterize the range of policy makers’ perspectives on the use of research in substance use disorder treatment and coverage decisions. Methods We conducted open-ended, semi-structured interviews with a purposive sample of eighteen policy makers involved in the delivery of health services. The aim was to identify barriers and facilitators, attitudes, beliefs, and experiences surrounding the use of research related to the treatment and economics of substance use disorder. Results The analysis generated four themes: 1) policy maker engagement with evidence and researchers; 2) strategic use and usefulness of research; 3) scientific rigor versus relevance; and 4) communication of evidence. Within each theme, the participants identified barriers, facilitators, current practice, and gave their perspectives on “ideal conditions” for research design, conduct and communication. Conclusions Recommendations for investigators are the following actionable steps: 1) partner with policy makers early in the research process, 2) formulate and use research designs to meet the strategic goals of end-users; 3) systematically test alternative phrasing of scientific terminology – particularly in the realm of cost effectiveness research – that allow end users to better understand and repurpose the data; 4) incorporate qualitative research methods to uncover the narratives that explain the context and relevance of evidence; 5) incorporate study designs that prioritize timeliness of results; and 6) promote and reward researcher involvement in policy discussions. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s13011-019-0199-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Strategies for effective dissemination of research to United States policymakers: a systematic review

“…We examined dissemination based on geographic regions and/or political boundaries (i.e., regions or states). Sixteen of the 27 studies (about 59%) used national samples or multiple states and did not provide geographic-specific results [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]. Two studies (about 7%) did not specific the geographic region or state in which the study took place [43,44].…”

“…We also analyzed whether dissemination at different levels of government (i.e., local, state, and federal) used unique channels. Six of included studies (about 22%) examined multiple levels of government and did not separate results based on specific levels of government [27][28][29][30][31]53]. One study did not specifically identify the level of government used [46].…”

“…The majority of studies focused on health topics (n = 12) [29,30,33,34,38,41,42,45,47,55,56,58] and child and family well-being (n = 6) [27,36,46,49,52,57]. The remaining studies covered the topics of education (n = 4) [39,43,53,54], guns [56], veterans [44], and general social research (n = 3) [31,32,48].…”

“…Print materials was the most commonly used channel, including reports (n = 10) [27,30,33,41,46,50,53,55,57,58] and policy briefs (n = 3) [31,34,38]. Researchers examined in-person meetings and communications as a channel to disseminate research (n = 9) [30,32,33,39,44,48,53,56,57]. Research and research summaries were also studied (n = 7) [30,31,42,47,49,52,54].…”

“…Researchers examined in-person meetings and communications as a channel to disseminate research (n = 9) [30,32,33,39,44,48,53,56,57]. Research and research summaries were also studied (n = 7) [30,31,42,47,49,52,54]. Both traditional (n = 6) [31,33,47,[52][53][54] and social media (n = 2) [47,53] were examined as channels to disseminate research to policymakers.…”