5.1 Common barriers

There are at least six main barriers to using research in policy-making:

• complexity of evidence
• absence of personal relationships
• not enough time
• apparently irrelevant research
• lack of analytical capacity
• budget constraints.

You should now read an article that includes more detail on these barriers (Fourie, 2017).

Regarding the ‘complexity of evidence’ barrier, the AMR briefings produced by the UK’s POST (Hall and Bunn, 2018; Evans and Border, 2018; Dowling and Border, 2019) are a good example of the breadth of evidence that can be drawn upon. The list of references at the end of the ‘Reservoirs of antimicrobial resistance’ policy brief includes technical reviews, government websites, government reports, independent inquiry reports and briefing papers, as well as numerous journal articles. But even using one form of evidence isn’t that easy; peer-reviewed research often comes from competing sources with varying methodologies, perspectives and ideologies.