The Center will develop SRs to address high policy priority issues in the EMR and will also build individual and institutional capacity of young researchers in conducting SRs on Health Policy and Systems Research.
The answer to this challenge might be found in focused responses using high priority policy issues for communities and working environmental remediation, mitigation, and restoration into existing dialogues.
A total of 26 crosscutting high priority policy issues were identified at country- and regional-level.
Concerning the availability of evidence, only a quarter of respondents reported that research evidence on high priority policy issues was very frequently/frequently available to policymakers.
In fact, more than half of respondents indicated that evidence on high priority policy issues was very rarely/rarely disseminated to policymakers, including articles or reports about primary research and policy briefs.
Additionally, participants emphasized the need for researchers to better align their research with high priority policy issues in their countries and accelerate their efforts in disseminating research evidence and making it readily accessible for policymaking (Table 4).
In the United Kingdom, the recommendations from the prioritization exercise were largely concerned with high level policy issues, while in the United States and Norway, more emphasis was given to individual clinical management [ 10, 14, 15, 24].
They found that KTE activities were not frequently undertaken by policy makers and researchers in these countries, that research evidence about high priority policy issues was rarely made available, and that the interaction between policy makers and researchers was limited and mostly informal [ 19].
Furthermore, respondents reported that policymakers very rarely/rarely identified or created places for utilizing research evidence in decision-making acquired research evidence on high priority policy issues, or participated in training to develop their capacity to find and use evidence and assess its quality and local applicability (Table 2).
Most respondents indicated that research evidence about high priority policy issues was rarely made available to policymakers, interaction between policymakers and researchers was limited and mostly informal, and that policymakers rarely identified or created places for utilizing research evidence in decision-making.
