Testing Strategies to Improve Substance Misuse Prevention Research Use in State Policy Contexts

RPC impact on introduction of evidence-informed bills

Assessment of use of research evidence in bills introduced during the intervention period. It is anticipated that legislators will introduce over 5,000 bills relating to substance use are. These bills will be coded for presence of evidence markers using a validated, deductive codebook to identify how legislators use research evidence in legislative language. A subset of these bills (N = 150) will be reviewed by trained coders to identify the form (i.e. direct or indirect) and the goal of evidence use (i.e., sharing the cause of the problem, status of the problem, solving the problem, generating new knowledge, or accountability). Observed use of research evidence in bills will be quantified and analyzed in a series of multi-level models to test change across three time points.

RPC impact on legislators' perceived use of prevention research

Legislators' perceived use of research evidence will be assessed with the Reported Use of Research Evidence Scale (minimum value = 1, maximum value =5, higher scores indicate increased use of research evidence), which assesses use of research across various stages of the policy process (e.g., agenda setting, policy evaluation) and the three types of research use (i.e., instrumental, conceptual, and symbolic). Research will be defined for participants as information gleaned from scientific studies, academic investigations, or program evaluations assessing the effectiveness of an intervention. Surveys from state legislators will be analyzed longitudinally by modeling change across the two time points-including multi-level repeated measures and growth curve models (MLM).

RPC impact on legislators' engagement with prevention researchers

The investigators will use validated quantitative survey instrument to investigate how the RPC model influences the frequency of policymakers' different types of interactions with researchers (5-pt. Likert scale; ɑ = .89). A series of multi-level models will be employed to account for the nested structure of the study design. In addition to main effects models at each time point, this includes a three-level design that nests legislators within their state legislature across 3 time points (baseline, post intervention, and 6 months following the intervention. Survey data will be modeled in terms of absolute difference and change from baseline to post-test to assess trial main effects. Survey data from state legislators will also be analyzed longitudinally across the three time points-including multi-level repeated measures and growth curve models (MLM) using MPlus.

RPC impact on state legislators' value of substance misuse prevention science

The investigators will use a validated quantitative survey instrument to assess how the RPC model influences legislators' perceived value of research use in their work and in policymaking more generally. It will be measured with an adapted version of the Seeking, Engaging with, and Evaluating Research (SEER) protocol. Policymakers will be asked to rate how strongly they agree with four statements assessing whether they feel they know general information pertaining to prevention programming. A series of multi-level models will be employed to account for the nested structure of the study design. In addition to main effects models at each time point, this includes a three-level design that nests legislators within their state legislature across 3 time points (baseline, post intervention, and 6 months following intervention). Survey data will be modeled in terms of absolute difference and change from baseline to post-test to assess trial main effects.

RPC effectiveness on legislators' awareness of substance misuse prevention science

The investigators will use a validated quantitative survey instrument to investigate how the RPC model influences legislators' awareness of substance misuse prevention science. Policymakers will be asked to rate how strongly they agree with four statements assessing whether they feel they know general information pertaining to prevention programming. A series of multi-level models will be used to account for the nested structure of the study design. In addition to main effects models at each time point, this includes a three-level design that nests legislators within their state legislature across 3 time points (baseline, post intervention, and 6 months following intervention). Survey data will be modeled in terms of absolute difference and change from baseline to post-test to assess trial main effects.