The Role of Intermediaries in Research Impact

An Ethnographic Case Study of a Public Health Unit

Amy LemayOISE, University of Toronto

Gratefully acknowledge the financial support from CASRAI and Mitacs

Accelerate

Outline

• Intermediaries, the use of research and research impact

• Case study• Research use value chain• Mandatory Food Handler Certification• Interpretation & Implications

Intermediaries - Use of Research-Impacts

• Need to be aware of the range of uses of research for accurate, meaningful impact assessment

• The importance of intermediaries in the use of research emerged recently as critical to improving the uptake of research - maximizing the impacts of research

Research & Transformational Change

• Direct links between researchers and users shown to improve use of research leading to increased impacts

• Substantive, transformational change unlikely to be facilitated by closers links

• Research must be aggregate/synthesized with other elements (social, political)

Advocacy Oriented Intermediaries

• Third sector organizations (health charities, advocacy organizations) often include knowledge brokering/mobilization in mandate

• Emerging evidence that uptake of research can be limited by absence of strong advocacy-oriented audience for research

• Advocacy organizations serve as focal points around which researchers and research coalesce

CASE STUDY

• Ethnographic case study of a public health unit in Ontario: direct observation, interviews, document review

• How do staff engage with and make use of academic research?oWhat is the role of intermediaries?

Research Use Value Chain

The use of research emerged within a complex, multi-directional value chain where research is continually further processed: (re)aggregated, (re)synthesized,(re)interpreted to add value for an equally complex and diverse network of hybrid intermediary-users.

Preferred Engagement with Research

PHU valued the academic literature and showed a strong preference for

aggregated, synthesized bodies of knowledge produced by intermediaries

Intermediaries• World Health Organization• American Heart Association• International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation• Public Health Ontario• Public Health Agency of Canada• Centres for Disease Control• Canadian Institute for Health Information• Ontario Tobacco Research Network• Health Canada• CBC• Public Health Units (e.g. epidemiologists)• Academic Researchers• Expert Committees• Professional Associations (Ontario Food Protection Association)

Role of Intermediaries“So basically, it’s a way of -- rather than each and every EMS system trying to pore through research itself, it's all...synthesized and packaged up for you…So rather than trying to do it the other way around, everything independently looking at the research and then getting together and try and recommend best practices, you’ve got the researchers getting together...determining what's appropriate, that turns into guidelines and then comes down to us as best practices...”(Manager)

Mandatory Food-handler Certification

• Business case presented to Board of Health cited a 2000 WHO document that synthesized the body of knowledge on food safety education

• More than 200 citations, many from the peer-reviewed academic literature, dating back to late 1960s

WHO Document: Synthesis of Body of

Knowledge

WHO document still cited

• Search of Google scholar shows the WHO (2000) document has been cited in the recent peer-reviewed literature:

• Sufen, Lui et al (2015). Knowledge, attitude and practices of food safety amongst food handlers in the coastal resort of Guangdong, China. Food Control 47:457

• Konar, N., et al (2014) Street milk and urban consumers in Turkey: a descriptive study. Journal of Consumer Protection and Food Safety. 9(1): 23.

Interpretation• Intermediaries may be better understood as

hybrid intermediary-users where…• Further processing of research decouples it

from its origins making it difficult to assess and attribute impact, highlighting …

• Importance of the academic literature in creating a “legacy of the research” that allows…

• Ongoing, continual processing that extends impacts long after research is completed and…

• Contributes to the system of scientific knowledge – representing what can be known and knowable in the future

Implications

Impacts of research decoupled from researcher by further processing by

intermediary-users could represent a significant source of long-term impact

Questions?