EVIDENCE BRIEFS AS A MECHANISM FOR KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER AND EXCHANGE: ASSESSING VIEWS ABOUT, EXPERIENCES WITH, AND INFLUENCES OF POLICY-RELEVANT RESEARCH SYNTHESES IN LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES

Abstract

<p>Evidence briefs are an innovative and promising approach to synthesizing the best available research evidence to support evidence-informed health policymaking in low- and middle-income countries. Unfortunately, despite their increased use, little work has been undertaken to understand how the contexts in which briefs are prepared and the issues that they address influence the ways in which policymakers and stakeholders view them. Furthermore, there have been few efforts to determine whether and how evidence briefs influence the policy processes related to the priority policy issues for which they are prepared. This thesis begins to address these issues through four manuscripts that use a range of methods and approaches to develop a deeper understanding of briefs and their use, as well as the ways in which they can be evaluated in low- and middle-income countries. Taken together the chapters present: 1) the development of a theoretical framework through a systematic review that highlights how factors related to contexts and issues can influence policymakers’ and stakeholders’ views about evidence briefs and their design features; 2) results from a survey conducted across six countries that provide insights into how policymakers, stakeholders and researchers who have read evidence briefs view them and their design features; 3) an approach to operationalizing factors related to contexts and issues as variables for use in quantitative analyses of evidence briefs; and 4) four case studies that explain how evidence briefs prepared for priority policy issues in low- and middle-income countries influenced the policy processes related to these issues. These chapters constitute substantive, methodological and disciplinary contributions to the field of health systems research, and in particular about how to support its use in efforts to strengthen health systems. They also support the continued use and evaluation of evidence briefs in efforts to strengthen health systems in low- and middle-income countries.</p>