Skip Navigation


Family Practice Advance Access originally published online on September 15, 2008
Family Practice 2008 25(Supplement 1):i20-i24; doi:10.1093/fampra/cmn055
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
25/suppl_1/i20    most recent
cmn055v1
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Green, L. W
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Green, L. W
Social Bookmarking
 Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

This article appears in the following Family Practice issue: Creating Supportive Environments for Nutrition Guidance: Towards a Synergy Between Primary Care and Public Health. Proceedings of the Fifth Heelsum International Workshop 10-12 December 2007. [View the issue table of contents]

Making research relevant: if it is an evidence-based practice, where's the practice-based evidence?

Lawrence W Green

Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Medicine, University of California at San Francisco, 185 Berry Street, PO Box 0981, San Francisco, CA 9414-0981, USA; email: LGreen{at}cc.ucsf.edu

Received 16 May 2008; Accepted 29 July 2008.


   Abstract

The usual search for explanations and solutions for the research-practice gap tends to analyze ways to communicate evidence-based practice guidelines to practitioners more efficiently and effectively from the end of a scientific pipeline. This examination of the pipeline looks upstream for ways in which the research itself is rendered increasingly irrelevant to the circumstances of practice by the process of vetting the research before it can qualify for inclusion in systematic reviews and the practice guidelines derived from them. It suggests a ‘fallacy of the pipeline’ implicit in one-way conceptualizations of translation, dissemination and delivery of research to practitioners. Secondly, it identifies a ‘fallacy of the empty vessel’ implicit in the assumptions underlying common characterizations of the practitioner as a recipient of evidence-based guidelines. Remedies are proposed that put emphasis on participatory approaches and more practice-based production of the research and more attention to external validity in the peer review, funding, publication and systematic reviews of research in producing evidence-based guidelines.

Keywords. External validity, evidence-based practice, dissemination, generalizability.


Green LW. Making research relevant: if it is an evidence-based practice, where's the practice-based evidence? Family Practice 2008; 25: i20–i24.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
AJPHHome page
A. L. Salvatore, J. Chevrier, A. Bradman, J. Camacho, J. Lopez, G. Kavanagh-Baird, M. Minkler, and B. Eskenazi
A Community-Based Participatory Worksite Intervention to Reduce Pesticide Exposures to Farmworkers and Their Families
Am J Public Health, November 1, 2009; 99(S3): S578 - S581.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Home page
Clin RehabilHome page
S. van Twillert, K. Postema, J. H. Geertzen, T. Hemminga, and A. T Lettinga
Improving rehabilitation treatment in a local setting: a case study of prosthetic rehabilitation
Clinical Rehabilitation, October 1, 2009; 23(10): 938 - 947.
[Abstract] [PDF]



Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.