Facilitators to health policy and management knowledge translation: A scoping review

Health policy and management knowledge translation is the ‘process of production, exchange and use of valid and quality knowledge for health policy makers and managers’. There is a Know-do gap in health policy and management. This study aimed to identify facilitators of knowledge translation in health policy and management.

This was a scoping review. All published articles on the facilitators to knowledge translation in health policy and management from 1 January 2002 to 20 March 2021 in nine databases were searched. Finally, 49 documents were reviewed and analyzed using MAXQDA software.

Overall 59 facilitators to health policy and management knowledge translation were identified and were grouped into seven categories including factors related to the characteristics of the healthcare system, the healthcare organization, the health policy and management knowledge, the knowledge producer, the knowledge user, the knowledge transfer technology and the communication between the knowledge producer and the user. Improving communication between researchers and policymakers and managers, generating applied knowledge, increasing access to valid evidence, developing knowledge producers’ and users’ skills, increasing collaboration between researchers and policymakers and managers, and increasing research resources were the most often reported facilitators to knowledge translation in health policy and management.

Researchers should be encouraged to produce applied knowledge and policymakers and managers should be encouraged to use research evidence in their decision-making. Appropriate policies, strategies, methods, and standards should be used to make more use of the knowledge generated in health policy and management.