How can research evidence and research-based ideas become embedded in public health decision-making?

This work aims to develop understanding of the different roles that research, and research-based ideas, play at different stages of public health decision-making processes. It will consider how research agendas were set, and how evidence was used to inform the short-term COVID-19 policy response, with a particular focus on the social determinants of health and how they were treated by researchers and commissioners.

The project will also develop conceptual work theorising different embedded academic researcher models and their implementation and impact in public health decision-making. Building on this work a further component will explore the ways in which research on social inequalities and the social determinants of health influence local public health decision-makers’ pandemic recovery response.

EPPI-Centre, University College London