Evidence-Based Health Policy Making: A Roadmap for Filling the Research and Decision-Making Gap

whether the searches were conducted
newly, and whether the studies were conducted in their
health care system needs to impact on the applicability
of the results [6].
In conclusion, an important challenge for researchers
and policy-makers is to determine whether evidence
about the effects of a policy is applicable to their settings.
Therefore, they can easily access to many types
of evidence based researches to inform advocacy and
decision-making about their health care systems. They
Dear Editor
The ultimate aim of a health care system is progression
of community health in an equal manner and various
factors can be contributed in achieving it. Many
health policy makers or managers try to produce evidences
to be used in the health care system for this goal
and they need many types of scientific documents to
make well-informed decisions [1].
For this reason, the importance of evidence-based
health policy making as a complicated task that affects
many various individual and organizational actions is
completely determined. Evidence to inform managers
or policy-makers can be found depending on several
factors, such as: The timeframe in which a policy-maker
requires a response, the available resources and global
or local evidence required. The nature of policy-maker’s
request determines the type of evidence and its availability.
If evidence is not found, the other measures
available may require attention [2].
Many different databases, initiatives and search
strategies are available internationally to support policy-
makers. Based on the advice of the European Advisory
Committee on Health Research in 2003, WHO/Europe
has adopted an initial definition of evidence that
included context-related information and research find