The ethnographic evaluation of the Research-to-Policy Collaboration, funded by the William T. Grant Foundation, is a collaboration between the University of Texas Medical Branch, Penn State, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. We evaluated prominent barriers to congressional offices’ use of research evidence involve a lack of researcher-policymaker contact and capacity to write evidence-based legislation. This work evaluated an approach for improving the use of evidence in legislative policymaking—known as the RPC model. The Research-to-Policy Collaboration (RPC) Model seeks to address these barriers through a structured process for identifying policymakers’ priorities in youth focused areas, building capacity for researchers to respond to current policy priorities, facilitating productive researcher-policymaker interactions, and incorporating research evidence into legislative language. Specifically, we tested the RPC’s effectiveness through experimental design (randomization) using qualitative and quantitative assessments of researcher-policymaker interactions and impact. This includes collection of survey data from congressional staff and researchers, record review of policymaker’s public statements and introduced legislative language and qualitative interviews of researcher and congressional office experience from taking part in the RPC. This work provides unique insights about a theory-driven strategy for increasing federal legislators’ use of evidence through interactive discourse, legislative language, and public statements, which may expand the way policymakers think about child and family issues, rationalize specific policy solutions, or create data-driven structures that guide federal investments. Of particular opportunity, is that this work will provide unique insights into a promising strategy for increasing the use of evidence in federal legislative contexts.
For more information, contact Shannon Guillot-Wright at spguillo@utmb.edu.