Journal Article

A taxonomy of demand-driven questions for use by evidence producers, intermediaries and decision-makers: results from a cross-sectional survey

Lavis, John N., Sweetman, Arthur, Guyatt, Gordon, Mansilla, Cristián

2024

Overview

Background Globally, a growing number of calls to formalize and strengthen evidence-support systems have been released, all of which emphasize the importance of evidence-informed decision making. To achieve this, it is critical that evidence producers and decision-makers interact, and that decision-makers’ evidence needs can be efficiently translated into questions to which evidence producers can respond. This paper aims to create a taxonomy of demand-driven questions for use by evidence producers, intermediaries (i.e., people working in between researchers and decision-makers) and decision-makers. Methods We conducted a global cross-sectional survey of units providing some type of evidence support at the explicit request of decision-makers. Unit representatives were invited to answer an online questionnaire where they were asked to provide a list of the questions that they have addressed through their evidence-support mechanism. Descriptive analyses were used to analyze the survey responses, while the questions collected from each unit were iteratively analyzed to create a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of types of questions that can be answered with some form of evidence. Results Twenty-nine individuals completed the questionnaire, and more than 250 submitted questions were analysed to create a taxonomy of 41 different types of demand-driven questions. These 41 questions were organized by the goal to be achieved, and the goals were grouped in the four decision-making stages (i) clarifying a societal problem, its causes and potential impacts; (ii) finding and selecting options to address a problem; (iii) implementing or scaling-up an option; and (iv) monitoring implementation and evaluating impacts. Conclusion The mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of demand-driven questions will help decision-makers (to ask and prioritize questions), evidence producers (to organize and present their work), and evidence-intermediaries (to connect evidence needs with evidence supply).

• Publisher: BioMed Central,BioMed Central Ltd,Springer Nature B.V,BMC
• Subject: Administrative Personnel / Classification / Cross-Sectional Studies / Decision makers / Decision Making / Demand / Evidence (Science) / Evidence-based practice / Evidence-informed decision making / Evidence-informed policy / Health Administration / Health Policy / Health Services Research / Humans / Management / Medicine / Medicine & Public Health / Methodology / Methods / Polls & surveys / Public Health / Questionnaires / Questions / R & D/Technology Policy / Research Personnel / Responses / Support networks / Support systems / Surveys / Surveys and Questionnaires / Taxonomy