Securing Support for Public Health Services and Systems Research: Results from an Environmental Scan
As part of the research agenda-setting initiative, Ensuring an Evidence-Based Approach to [Re]building the Public Health System, this report states key points for the lack of sustained investment in PHSSR and includes enabling conditions needed for a successful research agenda environment.
AcademyHealth conducted a literature review and key informant interviews to identify reasons for the lack of sustained investment in the public health services and systems research (PHSSR) field. This work was done as part of the research agenda-setting initiative, Ensuring an Evidence-Based Approach to [Re]building the Public Health System. Three focus areas emerged as particularly salient to the lack of sustained investment in PHSSR, including:
- Funding;
- Relevance and impact; and
- Branding and advocacy.
The report further details enabling conditions needed for a successful research agenda environment. These conditions were categorized as top-down, bottom-up, and bidirectional:
- Top-down: Federal-level leadership, agile federal funding, and demand for evidence.
- Bottom-up: Culturally responsive, equitable, and anti-racist community engagement; research friendly environments in public health departments; and health equity data analysis, research, and evaluation skills.
- Bidirectional: Trust and communication, leadership, improved interconnected data, and acceptance and greater use of the systems lens.
Surfacing considerations around the agenda’s broader environment, this report provides background for the initiative’s Deliberative Dialogue: a convening of diverse, multi-stakeholder, and multidisciplinary public health practitioners and policymakers, PHSSR researchers, community partners, and potential funders. The report further provides the groundwork for the renewed research agenda for the evidence needed to guide and improve public health programs, systems, and services in the next decade.