The NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Greater Manchester's Knowledge Mobilisation (KM) programme focuses on helping local partners make better decisions by using the best available research, whilst also developing capacity in knowledge mobilisation (KM) and evidence use, paritculary around the following areas:
- Primary and secondary prevention of poor health
- Reduction in health inequalities
- Population health management, and
- Strategic comissioning.
The NIHR ARC Greater Manchester knowledge mobilisation team are doing this by:
- Rapid Evidence Synthesis - the team are providing health and social care system partner quick access to useful evidnce by helping prodcing reliable, easy to use summaries of research on important health topics, to support local decision making.
- Embedded KM Fellows in the GM health and social care system - Greater Manchester faces complex health and care needs, and strong evidence is essential for making good decisions. 2 KM Fellows are being funded accross the GM system, to help bridge the gap between research, policy and everyday practice. It brings people together, strengthens skills across organisations, and supports long lasting improvements in care to create a more impactful, connected, confident and evidence informed system—one that can respond quickly to local needs and deliver better outcomes for communities.
- Building knowledge mobilisation skills in organisations with traditionally less research capacity - 6 KM Champions based in NHS organisations with limited research infrasturure are being funded, and supported to a) encourage teams to pull research into their work, b) make evidence use part of everyday practice; and c) support closer working with researcher and research teams.
- Supporting early career researchers - Supporting early, and mid, career researchers to understand what types of research information NHS partners need and how to respond to those needs, through working in collaboration with the funded KM Fellows and KM Champions from the local health and socal care system.
KM Projects underway in ARC Greater Manchester
- Health Literacy informed approaches
Health Literacy informed approaches: A Rapid Evidnce Synthesis
The World Health Organization defines health literacy as “the personal characteristics and social resources needed for individuals and communities to access, understand, appraise and use information and services to make decisions about health.
There is a drive to use health literacy-informed approaches in the delivery of health and care to enhance access to and uptake of relevant information, particularly among service users with low-level health literacy skills (who are often those from disadvantaged communities). The potential performance benefits for organisations in delivering health-literacy-informed services could include improvements in Did-Not-Attend (DNA) rates, reduced service readmissions and delayed discharges, reductions in health inequities, and improved health outcomes of service users.
The ARC-GM funded KM Fellow suported a Rapid Evidence Synthesis (RES) looking at the mpact of health literacy-informed services and care delivery on hospital performance outcomes, by acting as "knowledge broker" between the GM Integreated Care Board and GM Population Health Team and the NIHR ARC-GM researcers, providing insghtful system level understanding, language and support to define the scope of the synthesis to focus.
The RES found that there is a little evidence on the impact of health literacy-informed services and care delivery on hospital performance outcomes and no evidence on mortality, with evidence with some uncertainties appearing to favour the use of:
- pictograms (visual aids) - used among caregivers to reduce the risk of medication administration errors
- health-literacy focused interventions used to improve treatment adherence and self-management - to decrease emergency department (ED) visits
- educational videos to delier information for people with diabetes - to reduce acute hospital admissions
- self-management programmes used with heart failure patients - focusing on medication to reduce hospitalisation and ED visits
- culturally and literacy-adapted audio-visual education for immigrants - to reduce children's ED visits.
The KM Fellow has been a key druiver in ensuring the RES team feedback findings to the GM ICN and Population Health teams to supoprt future policymaking.
The full synthesis is available here ARC GM | Rapid Evidence Synthesis
- Establishing a Greater Manchester Public Health Research Network
Establishing a Greater Manchester Public Health Research Network
ARC-GM are part-funding a Public Health Consultant, to act as an embedded strategic public health knowledge broker, strengthening the interface between research and practice by connecting people, shaping research, building capability and catalysing the development of knowledge mobilisation infrastructure across Greater Manchester.
They are doing this by:
- Identifying opportunities where research can address public health priorities and help define researchable questions.
- Building capability to undertake and use research and evaluation. Improve accessibility and usability of research outputs.
- Connecting researchers, practitioners, organisations; translate between contexts; develop research infrastructure.
To develop:
- More relevant public health research, stronger partnerships, improved evaluation, and increased research use and capability.
- Stronger public health research ecosystem with sustainable KM infrastructure and greater use of evidence to inform practice.
More information
Further information can be found on the NIHR ARC Greater Manchester Knowledge Mobilisation web pages.
