This checklist from the National Institutes of Health (US) is written for the public but may be equally useful for communicating research to policymakers.
See the full checklist here: https://www.nih.gov/about-nih/what-we-do/science-health-public-trust/che...
Below are some extracts with my comments:
"As science and health communicators, our main goal is to share our institutions’ wealth of science and health knowledge"
Is this the main goal, or is it to contribute to evidence-informed policy and practice? They are not synonymous.
"Take care to not overstate the importance or statistical significance of a study, finding, or emerging situation when relaying what’s interesting or exciting about a scientific development."
This seems to me to be especially important. Too often we read or hear the mass media (and those who work in and with them?) misrepresenting and misleading the p[ublic and policymakers. A finding from a small or poorly designed study is put forward inappropriately as a truth, perhaps ignoring the wealth of contradictory evidence from existing research.
There is a bias here also to new primary research, which is typically given prominence over secondary research and systematic review. It is as if the media (and researchers?) can sometimes exploit the lack of understanding about knowledge synthesis and uncertainty.
"Use conditional language when appropriate (language that hedges or highlights the potential gaps or unknowns)."
This links with the previous point.
"Explicitly state whether the study shows an association or causation. An association is a relationship, or correlation. A positive association means as one goes up, so does the other. A negative association means as one goes up, the other goes down. Causation is when an event or variable is shown to cause a specific outcome. Whether a study shows association or causation depends on the study design."
This is commonly misrepresetned too.
"Discuss both the benefits and drawbacks of any potential treatment, as health care decisions must take many different factors into account, e.g. treatment effectiveness, side effects, and overall risk of the intervention."
Some researchers may be able to discuss this impartially, others not.
What do you think? Email hifa@hifaforums.org
Best wishes, Neil
Joint Coordinator, HIFA Communicating health research https://www.hifa.org/projects/new-effective-communication-health-researc...
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HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of the HIFA global health movement (Healthcare Information For All - www.hifa.org ), a global community with more than 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting on six global forums in four languages in collaboration with WHO. HIFA brings stakeholders together to accelerate progress towards universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK based non-profit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Twitter: @hifa_org neil@hifa.org
