title: Exploring potential research contributions to policy: the Salud America! Experience.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Increasingly, funders expect that public health researchers will include policy contributions as outcomes. Lack of agreement as to what constitutes a policy contribution of research provides little conceptual or implementation guidance to researchers who lack policy training, as well as to evaluators called on to assess "good" policy contribution.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  This study applies a previously developed policy framework to explore potential policy contributions from research conducted by 20 principal investigators of Salud America!, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's (RWJF) Research Network to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children.
  
  
  METHODS
  The literature-driven "Policy Contribution Spectra" served as the conceptual framework to jointly develop 20 cases of potential policy contribution. Data collection included document reviews and interviews. Data analysis included within- and cross-case analyses, member checking, data triangulation, and expert reviews.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Plotting all 20 projects on the Policy Contribution Spectra showed projects have the potential to contribute to policy across intervention types (e.g., needs assessment or applied research); levels (e.g., local or state); timing (e.g., before or after policy enactment); and outcomes (e.g., process action or health benefits). Potential policy contributions on the Spectra framework were shown as multidirectional; multilayered (e.g., simultaneous state and local action); and multidimensional (e.g., multiple strategies aimed at multiple stakeholders).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The Policy Contribution Spectra adds a useful policy lens to existing public health practice by enabling researchers, funders, advocates, and evaluators to visualize, reframe, discuss, and communicate with policymakers and the public to resolve important public health issues.
authors: San Francisco State University, School of Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.
authors: Judith M
authors: JM
authors: Ottoson
authors: Amelie G
authors: AG
authors: Ramirez
authors: Lawrence W
authors: LW
authors: Green
authors: Kipling J
authors: KJ
authors: Gallion
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D005582:Foundations / Q000458:organization & administration; D006266:Health Education / Q000458:organization & administration; D006291:Health Policy; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000458:organization & administration; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D033181:Information Dissemination; D009765:Obesity / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D011322:Primary Prevention / Q000458:organization & administration*; D012106:Research / Q000458:organization & administration*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology