Grant: Operating Grant

The health status of many countries' citizens suffers when poorly considered policies weaken or fail to strengthen health systems and when health systems fail to ensure the safe, efficient, and equitable delivery of effective services and technologies. A number of units are beginning to experiment with efforts to address the challenges of linking research evidence to policy about health systems. We call these units "knowledge-translation (KT) platforms" because they seek to convert the knowledge arising from research into the types of action on the ground that can mean the difference between life and death or the difference between good health and bad health. We have been asked to lead the evaluation of KT platforms that are being launched in municipalities (e.g., Beijing), countries (e.g., Mexico), and regions (e.g., east Africa) around the world. We plan to describe regularly what these KT platforms are doing, which of their efforts can be improved, and which combinations of their activities and outputs can be matched to particular contexts and (infra)structure in order to optimize desired outcomes and impact. Our research findings have the potential to inform future research and decision-making about KT platforms, both in Canada (where such units have been proposed by CIHR, but not yet funded) and in low- and middle-income countries.