Study Of Factors Influencing Health Policy Research Utilization

BackgroundThe utilization of health researches is far from satisfactory; the utilization rate of health researches was only 30%. A survey of utilization of health researches in Shandong Province during "Eighth-five" period indicated that the average utilization rate of health researches was only 46.7%. In fact, only 15.1% of the health researches have brought economic benefit. The soft science research utilization was also not satisfactory. According to a report, from 1985 to 1996, there were about 350 soft science researches each year finished in Anhui Province, but only half of them were used in policymaking. Among them, researches have brought economic benefit only accounted for 41%, only 5% of them had been producing mid or long- term economic benefit. There is no authoritative statistic of health policy research utilization. But many health policy researches published in literature have not been utilized till now. The inadequate utilization of health policy researches has been regarded as an important problem by WHO, GDN and ODI. The health policy researches are soft science researches; the users of health policy researches are health policymakers. Many factors influence the utilization of health policy researches from health researchers, foundations and decision-makers in the research process.The objectives of the study are: (1) identifying main and the key influencing factors of health policy research utilization, (2) putting forward the policy suggestions of health policy research utilization for policymakers, research fund donors, and researchers.