Tuesday, September 2, 2008

[EQ] The Canadian Best Practices Portal for Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention

The Canadian Best Practices Portal for Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention

A central component of the Canadian Best Practices System.

Public Health Agency of Canada, 2008

Website: http://cbpp-pcpe.phac-aspc.gc.ca/about/index_e.cfm

The primary goals of the Canadian Best Practices Portal are to:

Develop and disseminate best practices information for chronic disease prevention and control interventions

Provide decision makers with a comprehensive and standardized resource about best practices for chronic disease prevention and control

Create awareness of the overall Canadian Best Practices System through communication and marketing activities targeted to key audience: Decision makers in practice, Decision makers in policy development, Decision makers in research -.

Best Practices Selection Process (Methodology)

Methodology during Phase I focused on developing the following:

1. Criteria - Systematic Reviews

Two categories of criteria were developed for reviewing each of the systematic review sources: (1) screening criteria and (2) criteria for assessing the quality of the process used by the source to complete the systematic review. The source was required to meet each of these criteria, as follows, for inclusion in the Portal.

A. Criteria for screening systematic review sources

Relevant to health promotion and chronic disease prevention

Relevant to population health

Focused on primary and/or secondary level prevention rather than tertiary prevention

Credible and/or valid authority of source

Site content is current

Site is free of commercial influences

B. Criteria for assessing quality of the process used by the source

Can be rated by the Oxman-Guyatt ten-question assessment (1 page, 7Kb, PDF) of systematic reviews and meta-analyses

Additional criteria will be applied for Phase II and III.

2. Criteria for identifying and recommending effective interventions

3. Developing key information fields to summarize evidence for decision making in practice, policy and research

4. Search terms for systematic review and intervention annotations as well as the basis for the Portal search functions

5. Resource review criteria and procedure to ensure relevance of all material included on the Portal (Website text, Suggested Resources, Best Practices Annotation Template)

6. Glossary of terms relevant to best practices for health promotion and chronic disease prevention

Members of the Methodology Working Group guided the developments in response to needs of the Portal Working Group.

Systematic review evidence was a major emphasis for the development of the methodology during Phase I. Systematic review evidence was used to support evidence of effectiveness resulting in three types of best practice resources: systematic reviews, collections of interventions and individual interventions.

What Is a Portal?

A website that aims to be an entry point to the World Wide Web, typically offering a search engine and/or links to useful pages, and possibly news or other services.
Often geared to a specific population or topic.

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This message from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO/WHO, is part of an effort to disseminate
information Related to: Equity; Health inequality; Socioeconomic inequality in health; Socioeconomic
health differentials; Gender; Violence; Poverty; Health Economics; Health Legislation; Ethnicity; Ethics;
Information Technology - Virtual libraries; Research & Science issues. [DD/ KMS Area]

“Materials provided in this electronic list are provided "as is". Unless expressly stated otherwise, the findings
and interpretations included in the Materials are those of the authors and not necessarily of The Pan American
Health Organization PAHO/WHO or its country members”.
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[EQ] The impact of the social sciences on public policy and the impact of evidence-based policy on the social sciences

The impact of the social sciences on public policy
and the impact of evidence-based policy on the social sciences

Sarah Morton, Sandra Nutley and Tobias Jung

University of Edinburgh, July 2008

Available online PDF [44p.] at: http://www.crfr.ac.uk/norface/Report%20on%20seminar%202.pdf

The impact of evidence-based policy on the social sciences and vice-versa. The objectives were to explore:

• What we know about the impact of the social sciences on policy;

• How research impact is conceptualised and assessed;

• The impact of the evidence-based policy agenda on the social sciences.

“…..The past decade has seen growing interest in trying to understand the spread, use and influence of research in non-academic settings. This includes crossnational interest in the potential for research to improve policy making and contribute towards better social outcomes. …”

“…..There are concerns about the narrowness of many existing assessments of the influence of social research, such as bibliometrics and citation counts, one-off case studies and simple surveys of potential research users. This gives rise to a need for more sophisticated studies of research use and impact, studies that take into account how research-based knowledge flows and interacts in complex social systems. This means that research impact assessment needs to be shaped by a conceptual framework that captures the complexity of the research use process (see Roland Bal’s presentation)….”

Content:

Introduction

What has been the impact of social scences on policy?

What is research use and impact?

Assessing research impact

The impact of the evidence-based policy agenda on social sciences

International comparisons

Conclusions and next steps

Appendix 1: Programme for seminar two

Appendix 2: Participants

Appendix 3: Presentations

Appendix 4: Country presentations

Report Seminar 1:

Types of Knowledge for Evidence-Based Policy

Edinburgh, November 2007

PDF [35p.] at: http://www.crfr.ac.uk/norface/reports%20seminar%201/altered%20report%20seminar%201.pdf

Evidence and Policy

The University of Edinburgh (Scotland) is organising a seminar series on Evidence and Policy with the University of Iceland, National University of Ireland, University of Oslo and Erasmus University (Rotterdam). The seminars aim to advance international and comparative understanding of the use of different forms of knowledge and evidence in the policy process through a process of sharing of ideas and discussion across these jurisdictions.

Three seminars and a final workshop will take place:

•	Seminar 3: Improving the use of evidence in the policy process
	13th October 2008 Oslo
	This seminar will seek to document the strategies and interventions employed in a range of countries to improve the use of evidence in the policy process and consider any evidence on the effectiveness of these strategies. Particular attention will be paid to how intermediaries and policy networks operate within more open and deliberative policy processes.
•	Final Workshop March 2009 Dublin
	A final workshop will be held to allow participants to meet to reflect on the learning so far, finalise dissemination plans, consider the future of the network, and make plans for future joint work as a network or in smaller collaborative groups.

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[EQ] Framework for primary care organizations: the importance of a structural domain

Framework for primary care organizations: the importance of a structural domain

William Hogg1, Margo Rowan2, Grant Russell1, Robert Geneau3 and Laura Muldoon1

1 C.T. Lamont Primary Health Care Research Centre, Élisabeth Bruyère Research Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

2 Rowan Health Policy Consulting, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

3 Department of Family Medicine, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

This version published online on June 13, 2008

International Journal for Quality in Health Care, doi:10.1093/intqhc/mzm054

Website: http://intqhc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/mzm054v3

Purpose.
Conceptual frameworks for primary care have evolved over the last 40 years, yet little attention has been paid to the environmental, structural and organizational factors that facilitate or moderate service delivery. Since primary care is now of more interest to policy makers, it is important that they have a comprehensive and balanced conceptual framework to facilitate their understanding and appreciation. We present a conceptual framework for primary care originally developed to guide the measurement of the performance of primary care organizations within the context of a large mixed-method evaluation of four types of models of primary care in Ontario, Canada.

Methods.
The framework was developed following an iterative process that combined expert consultation and group meetings with a narrative review of existing frameworks, as well as trends in health management and organizational theory.

Results.
Our conceptual framework for primary care has two domains: structural and performance. The structural domain describes the health care system, practice context and organization of the practice in which any primary care organization operates. The performance domain includes features of health care service delivery and technical quality of clinical care.

Conclusion.
As primary care evolves through demonstration projects and reformed delivery models, it is important to evaluate its structural and organizational features as these are likely to have a significant impact on performance.

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