Building the “Science of Translation” using the case of marijuana legalization

大麻合法化的努力目前正在席卷全国，其程度 经验科学研究正在未知的情况下为这种政策变化提供信息。因为未来的政策 倾向于建立在当前政策的基础上，我们必须理解经验主义的科学 在公共卫生政策决策过程中使用研究，即在什么情况下 科学将为政策制定提供信息，以及如何促进决策者在 他们的政策制定过程。我们的长期目标是为翻译科学做出贡献 通过使用此案例研究来解释和预测研究将在什么情况下使用 为公共卫生政策决策提供信息。我们将对四个案例进行比较分析 大麻合法化：阿拉斯加和俄勒冈州的合法化(2014年秋季)，以及 在俄亥俄州(2015年秋季)和新墨西哥州(2016年)的合法化尝试失败/失败。对于每个 在这些案件中，我们将收集和分析书面评论，公开听证， 以及媒体对大麻合法化提议的报道。我们会收集证据 作为对拟议的大麻合法化努力的评论提交，并分析质量 以及科学的数量。此外，我们还将采访当选或任命的公职人员。 他们参与了他们所在州大麻合法化的政策舞台。 我们的目标是发现有效地为决策提供信息的科学研究 关于大麻合法化，以及科学研究如何与研究区分 这未能向政策提供信息。我们的具体目标是： (1)确定研究用户，检查公共卫生政策制定者如何定义(什么 构成研究)、获取、解释和使用科学研究；(2)探索社会 和政治条件下，科学研究将被使用或改编以告知公众 卫生政策；(3)比较和对比用于 将未使用的相关科学研究告知政策；以及，(四) 通过描述政策制定者在什么情况下进行翻译，为翻译科学做出贡献 将根据研究结果做出决定，即谁是最好的翻译人员，以及 如何为成功地将研究转化为政策创造富有成效的背景。 更好地理解是什么促进或阻碍了对科学知识的理解 关于大麻使用对健康影响的证据，我们就会知道是什么使 科学证据对公共卫生政策制定者更有价值。

Efforts to legalize marijuana are currently sweeping the nation, and the degree to which empirical scientific research is informing such policy change in unknown. Because future policy tends to build upon current policy, it is imperative that we understand how empirical scientific research is used in the public health policy decision process, i.e., the conditions under which science will inform policy making, and ways to facilitate policy makers’ utilization of science in their policy making process. Our long-term objective is to contribute to the science of translation by using this case study to explain and predict the conditions under which research will be used to inform public health policy decisions. We will conduct a comparative analysis of four cases of the legalization of marijuana: legalization in Alaska and Oregon (autumn 2014), and defeated/failed legalization attempts in Ohio (autumn 2015) and New Mexico (2016). For each of these cases we will collect and analyze the written commentary, public hearing testimony, and media coverage of the proposed marijuana legalization. We will assemble the evidence submitted as commentary on the proposed marijuana legalization efforts, and analyze quality and quantity of the science. In addition, we will interview elected or appointed public officials who were involved participants in the policy arena regarding marijuana legalization in their state. We aim to discover the scientific research that effectively informed policy decisions regarding marijuana legalization, and how that scientific research is distinguished from research that failed to inform policy. Our specific aims are: (1) To identify research users, examining how public health policy makers define (what constitutes “research”), acquire, interpret, and use scientific research; (2) To explore the social and political conditions under which scientific research will be used or adapted to inform public health policy; (3) To compare and contrast the relevant scientific research that was used to inform policy with the relevant scientific research with that that was not used; and, (4) To contribute to the science of translation by delineating the conditions under which policy makers will make decisions based on research findings, i.e., who makes for the best translators and how to create productive contexts for successful translation of research to policy. With a better understanding of what facilitates or hampers the uptake of scientific evidence regarding the health effects of marijuana use, we would know what makes the scientific evidence more valuable to public health policy makers.