Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

The creation of new research knowledge often does not lead on its own to innovations in Canada's health care system and improvements to population health. However, recent efforts on the part of researchers and policy and decision makers have resulted in a more direct translation of Canadian health research evidence into changes designed to improve both the health care system and patient care. Despite these successes, there are still improvements to be made for translating research evidence into health policy and practice. In particular, Canadian public health policy could benefit from increased research evidence input. This is demonstrated by current policies and interventions for addressing risk behaviours, (e.g. substance use and unsafe sex). Although there have been successes in some risk behaviour policy areas, such as evidence-based changes for reducing tobacco use and lowering its economic, health and social costs, some areas, like cannabis policy are less effective for addressing high use rates. The proposed project aims to build an understanding of how to better incorporate public health research evidence into public policy by comparing a successful public health policy area--tobacco--to a less successful policy area--cannabis. This comparative study will use historical, qualitative, and quantitative data to understand how policymakers in each field have (or have not) applied relevant research evidence in their work. These two case studies will be used to develop strategies for improving the translation of research into cannabis and other risk behaviour policy changes. Increasing the translation of research evidence into public health policy is the first step for building more effective interventions for addressing issues like substance use in Canada and improving the overall health of the Canadian population.