How Can We Support the Use of Systematic Reviews in Policymaking?

In the last few years the landscape has changed dramatically for policymakers seeking to use research evidence in the policymaking process. The landscape has also changed for the many stakeholders seeking to use research evidence to influence the policymaking process. The task once seemed overwhelming given the dearth of synthesized research evidence on the ‘‘big’’, typically multifaceted, questions that matter to policymakers and stakeholders [1,2]. Now it isn’t uncommon for these groups to find dozens of systematic reviews that address the governance, financial, and delivery arrangements within health systems that can determine whether a cost-effective program, service, or drug reaches those who need it. For example, teams of African policymakers, stakeholders, and researchers drew on 30 reviews for what at first glance seems a straightforward question: how to support the widespread use of artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) to treat uncomplicated falciparum malaria. The review of qualitative studies of people’s views about and experiences with medicine sellers provided insights that were as central to the process as reviews of the effectiveness of a particular ACT formulation or the home-based management of malaria [3–5]. For policymakers and stakeholders the challenge in using research evidence has shifted from making the best possible use of local studies to: (1) finding systematic reviews that address their many questions related to the policy issue at hand; (2) deriving insights from the reviews for a particular context (which may differ from where the studies included in the review were conducted); and (3) combining these