Grant: Doctoral: Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships

It takes on average 17 years for research evidence to be adopted into healthcare systems. The gap between what the scientific literature recommends and what governments do in practice means that Canadians can wait almost two decades to benefit from new discoveries. My goal is to identify the best ways for scientists and governments to share new research evidence so that the Canadian healthcare system operates using the most up-to-date information. One of the reasons it takes years for new evidence to affect what governments do is that scientists and policy makers have different ways of thinking about health problems. Using real-life Canadian experiences to capture key research evidence may be a good approach for making research information more useful to policy makers. The overall goal of my work is to define the format, delivery, and mechanisms by which stories can achieve optimal impact. To do this, I will interview a group of provincial and federal policy makers about how stories affect their work on reproductive and sexual health. Next, I will use what I learn to help collect real-life experiences of Canadians accessing reproductive and sexual healthcare, and turn them into stories for policy makers. The last step will be to test what effect the stories have, which I will do by sharing them with policy makers who will give feedback on how they used the information. This study will provide a new set of methods to promote the use of research evidence in government. The methods will be created with and for policy makers and will be scientifically evaluated so that other scientists have tools to get research evidence into the hands of people who are responsible for the healthcare system. By closing the gap between science and government, this study will help ensure that the healthcare system provides the best possible care to all Canadians.