IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v61y2005i8p1649-1657.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Research use in children's mental health policy in Canada: Maintaining vigilance amid ambiguity

Author

Listed:
  • Waddell, Charlotte
  • Lavis, John N.
  • Abelson, Julia
  • Lomas, Jonathan
  • Shepherd, Cody A.
  • Bird-Gayson, Twylla
  • Giacomini, Mita
  • (Dan) Offord, David R.

Abstract

Many researchers hope to see the best available research evidence used in policy-making to address important public problems. However, policy often appears to be based on anything but the research evidence, as the problem of conduct disorder (or severe antisocial behaviour in children) shows. In Canada, few children receive effective prevention or treatment programs, and incarceration is overused, despite evidence that it is ineffective and potentially harmful. Using the example of conduct disorder, we investigated why policy-making has not reflected the research evidence, examining research use in the context of competing influences on the policy process. Qualitative methods were used to analyze data from interviews with thirty-two politicians and senior civil servants. Our allegiance to rationality wavered as we listened to policy-makers who contended with the inherent ambiguity in the policy process. They told us that they managed institutional constraints including fragmentation across levels and sectors of government, and the long-term effects of fiscal restraint. They also reconciled the competing interests of stakeholders' priorities, the public's response to negative events involving children and the media's role in shaping this response. Ideas about youth violence were morally charged, but policy-makers remained committed to improving children's lives. Day-to-day, policy-makers obtained most of their information internally and informally. Research evidence was valued and used, but as just one source of ideas and information among many. In this environment of ambiguity, creative civil servants formed partnerships with trusted researchers in order to change policy. Our findings suggest that the use of research evidence in policy-making could be enhanced if researchers learned about the competing influences on the policy process, formed research-policy partnerships, challenged the incentives within research institutions, and engaged in public debates about important problems, such as child antisocial behaviour.

Suggested Citation

  • Waddell, Charlotte & Lavis, John N. & Abelson, Julia & Lomas, Jonathan & Shepherd, Cody A. & Bird-Gayson, Twylla & Giacomini, Mita & (Dan) Offord, David R., 2005. "Research use in children's mental health policy in Canada: Maintaining vigilance amid ambiguity," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(8), pages 1649-1657, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:61:y:2005:i:8:p:1649-1657
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(05)00127-9
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. J Lomas, 1990. "Finding Audiences, Changing Beliefs: The Structure of Research Use in Canadian Health Policy," Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis Working Paper Series 1990-10, Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis (CHEPA), McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.
    2. Davis, Peter & Howden-Chapman, Philippa, 1996. "Translating research findings into health policy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 43(5), pages 865-872, September.
    3. Nancy Shulock, 1999. "The paradox of policy analysis: If it is not used, why do we produce so much of it?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(2), pages 226-244.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christian Dagenais & Marie Malo & Émilie Robert & Mathieu Ouimet & Diane Berthelette & Valéry Ridde, 2013. "Knowledge Transfer on Complex Social Interventions in Public Health: A Scoping Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(12), pages 1-9, December.
    2. Macnaughton, Eric & Nelson, Geoffrey & Goering, Paula, 2013. "Bringing politics and evidence together: Policy entrepreneurship and the conception of the At Home/Chez Soi Housing First Initiative for addressing homelessness and mental illness in Canada," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 100-107.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Heine Klaus & Mause Karsten, 2003. "Politikberatung als informationsökonomisches Problem," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 223(4), pages 479-490, August.
    2. Theobald, Sally & Nhlema-Simwaka, Bertha, 2008. "The research, policy and practice interface: Reflections on using applied social research to promote equity in health in Malawi," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 67(5), pages 760-770, September.
    3. MÃ¥ns Nilsson, 2005. "The Role of Assessments and Institutions for Policy Learning: A Study on Swedish Climate and Nuclear Policy Formation," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 38(4), pages 225-249, December.
    4. Michael Howlett, 2009. "Policy Advice in Multi-Level Governance Systems: Sub-National Policy Analysts and Analysis," International Review of Public Administration, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(3), pages 1-16, January.
    5. Pannell, David J., 2004. "Effectively communicating economics to policy makers," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 48(3), pages 1-21.
    6. Currie, Melissa & King, Gillian & Rosenbaum, Peter & Law, Mary & Kertoy, Marilyn & Specht, Jacqueline, 2005. "A model of impacts of research partnerships in health and social services," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 28(4), pages 400-412, November.
    7. Yolanda Kodrzycki & Pingkang David Yu, 2005. "New approaches to ranking economics journals," Working Papers 05-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    8. Justin Longo & Alan Rodney Dobell, 2018. "The Limits of Policy Analytics: Early Examples and the Emerging Boundary of Possibilities," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 6(4), pages 5-17.
    9. Perleth, Matthias & Jakubowski, Elke & Busse, Reinhard, 2001. "What is `best practice' in health care? State of the art and perspectives in improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the European health care systems," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 235-250, June.
    10. Strzałkowski, Andrzej, 2024. "Adaptation and operationalisation of sustainable degrowth for policy: Why we need to translate research papers into legislative drafts?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    11. Carol L. McWilliam, 1997. "Using a Participatory Research Process to Make a Difference in Policy on Aging," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 23(s1), pages 70-89, Spring.
    12. Howden-Chapman, Philippa & Viggers, Helen & Chapman, Ralph & O’Sullivan, Kimberley & Telfar Barnard, Lucy & Lloyd, Bob, 2012. "Tackling cold housing and fuel poverty in New Zealand: A review of policies, research, and health impacts," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 134-142.
    13. Anna Wesselink & Hal Colebatch & Warren Pearce, 2014. "Evidence and policy: discourses, meanings and practices," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 47(4), pages 339-344, December.
    14. Claire A Dunlop, 2014. "The Possible Experts: How Epistemic Communities Negotiate Barriers to Knowledge Use in Ecosystems Services Policy," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 32(2), pages 208-228, April.
    15. McAneney, H. & McCann, J.F. & Prior, L. & Wilde, J. & Kee, F., 2010. "Translating evidence into practice: A shared priority in public health?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(10), pages 1492-1500, May.
    16. Gordon, Elisa Jill, 2006. "The political contexts of evidence-based medicine: Policymaking for daily hemodialysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(11), pages 2707-2719, June.
    17. Schlaufer, Caroline, 2018. "The contribution of evaluations to the discourse quality of newspaper content," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 157-165.
    18. Sudeepa Khanal & Lira Ramadani & Melanie Boeckmann, 2023. "Health Equity in Climate Change and Health Policies: A Systematic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-18, July.
    19. Sedlačko Michal & Staroňová Katarína, 2015. "An Overview of Discourses on Knowledge in Policy: Thinking Knowledge, Policy and Conflict Together," Central European Journal of Public Policy, Sciendo, vol. 9(2), pages 10-31, December.
    20. Iris Stucki & Fritz Sager, 2018. "Aristotelian framing: logos, ethos, pathos and the use of evidence in policy frames," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 51(3), pages 373-385, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:61:y:2005:i:8:p:1649-1657. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.