Knowledge translation (also known as KT) is
one of those important things that has been going on since the dawn of time,
but has now been given a name and a scientific grounding. Many things that we
have learned have been from knowledge translation - someone who “knows” has
taken that knowledge and put it into a format that helped us learn. This is
great as long as the knowledge is correct.
But what happens if it is not?
We could learn something that will not be of maximal value to us and may even be unhelpful or harmful. So here is where the science of KT comes in. Over the last few years a methodology for doing KT has been developed and extensively tested. It consists of systematic and reproducible techniques of finding and evaluating all the available knowledge on any particular topic or issue. These techniques are necessary because all information out there is not of equal quality - some is better and some is much better than others. Some may be more likely to be correct and some more likely to be wrong. The techniques used to evaluate the information are very stringent and have been developed to try and ensure that when the information is synthesized the syntheses is more likely to be correct than not correct. So knowledge will have been translated from scientific studies into a common and more certain bundle of information.
Then the next step comes in — taking that bundle of information and putting it into a format that meets the needs of various users. Because what good is KT if it is not used by people to improve what they are doing and to better understand the world around them?
The Sun Life Chair group does both kinds of KT. We conduct systematic literature evaluations and critical analysis to provide the best available evidence on a variety of topics. For example, one recent topic was that of school-based programs designed to prevent suicide. Guess what we found — although there are many such programs (and I think that some people are making quite a bit of money by selling them) there is very shaky evidence that any are effective.
Indeed, we could not find one that clearly demonstrated it decreased suicide rates in young people! So this is very important information for people making health and education policy and for people who want to buy some of these programs. We think that it’s better to use those things that work instead of those things that do not work or that we do not know if they work or those things that may be harmful.
I recently filmed a video with Insider Medicine talking about knowledge translation. Check it out for more info.
Cheers - Dr. Stan Kutcher
But what happens if it is not?
We could learn something that will not be of maximal value to us and may even be unhelpful or harmful. So here is where the science of KT comes in. Over the last few years a methodology for doing KT has been developed and extensively tested. It consists of systematic and reproducible techniques of finding and evaluating all the available knowledge on any particular topic or issue. These techniques are necessary because all information out there is not of equal quality - some is better and some is much better than others. Some may be more likely to be correct and some more likely to be wrong. The techniques used to evaluate the information are very stringent and have been developed to try and ensure that when the information is synthesized the syntheses is more likely to be correct than not correct. So knowledge will have been translated from scientific studies into a common and more certain bundle of information.
Then the next step comes in — taking that bundle of information and putting it into a format that meets the needs of various users. Because what good is KT if it is not used by people to improve what they are doing and to better understand the world around them?
The Sun Life Chair group does both kinds of KT. We conduct systematic literature evaluations and critical analysis to provide the best available evidence on a variety of topics. For example, one recent topic was that of school-based programs designed to prevent suicide. Guess what we found — although there are many such programs (and I think that some people are making quite a bit of money by selling them) there is very shaky evidence that any are effective.
Indeed, we could not find one that clearly demonstrated it decreased suicide rates in young people! So this is very important information for people making health and education policy and for people who want to buy some of these programs. We think that it’s better to use those things that work instead of those things that do not work or that we do not know if they work or those things that may be harmful.
I recently filmed a video with Insider Medicine talking about knowledge translation. Check it out for more info.
Cheers - Dr. Stan Kutcher
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