WED-108 - Legislator Evaluation of Health Policy Communication Tools Used to Support State Legislative Offices

Brief Abstract Summary: Timely evidence-based information is crucial in improving communication between researchers and legislators, facilitating the use of research evidence in the policymaking process. Legislative offices involved in the Texas Research-to-Policy Collaboration (TX RPC) Project completed a post-session survey to assess health policy tools provided during the 2023 Legislative Session; these included Health Policy Resource reports, newsletters, Lunch & Learn presentations, webinars, and the Texas Legislative Bill Tracker. The survey assessed timeliness, relevance, and utilization of policy tools by legislative offices. Sixteen of the seventeen legislative offices (94%) reported favorable (excellent or good) utility and timeliness of the TX RPC Project Lunch & Learn events and Health Policy resources. These findings reflect strong support for legislative tools developed by researchers.

Detailed abstract description:

Background: Timely, evidence-based information provided to legislative offices has been shown to build rapport between researchers and policymakers, leading to the use of research evidence (URE) in the policymaking process. This abstract describes an initial assessment of the usefulness of Texas Research-to-Policy Collaboration (TX RPC) Project tools developed for state legislative offices.

Methods: Of the 32 legislative offices that participated in the TX RPC Project, 17 completed a post- session survey to assess the usefulness of health policy tools provided during the 2023 Legislative Session. Tools to support evidence-based public health policy included Health Policy Resources, newsletters, webinars, Lunch & Learn presentations, and the Texas Legislative Bill Tracker. The survey assessed the timeliness, relevance, and utilization of these tools using a 5-item Likert response scale that ranged from “inadequate” to “excellent”. The overall frequency of communication and amount of content shared were evaluated with responses from “Not enough,” “Just right,” or “Too much.” Response frequencies were calculated for each question.

Results: All legislative offices (n=17) who completed the evaluation reported that the TX RPC Project’s ability to provide timely and usable information was “excellent” or “good”. Sixteen offices provided feedback on the Health Policy Resource briefs, which provide key takeaways, infographics, and timely information on topics, such as food as medicine and maternal care deserts. Fifteen offices assessed the relevancy of the report topics as “excellent” or “good” (93%), while one reported “satisfactory”. Among the 17 offices, 13 reported on the newsletter, with six (46%) noting the relevancy of the newsletter as “excellent”, four (30%) as “good”, and three (23%) as “Satisfactory”. Ten offices rated the newsletter’s timeliness and frequency of updates as “excellent” or “good”. Moreover, 15 offices (94%) reported that the dissemination of information through Lunch & Learn presentations was “excellent” or “good”, and 13 reported the timeliness of webinars on public health research topics as “excellent” or “good.” Nine offices reported the utilization of the Texas Legislative Bill Tracker, which follows public health-specific bills filed during each legislative session as “excellent”, and four offices (44%) reported the accessibility of the bill tracker as “good”. Overall, all offices agreed that the frequency of communication from the TX RPC Project was “just right”.

Conclusion: The evaluation results indicate positive perceptions about the utility of the TX RPC Project’s tools for health policy use by state legislative offices. While all of the tools were assessed as being useful, further qualitative work would be helpful in improving the newsletter content and utility of the bill tracker in order to continue to bridge the gap between research and policy.