Marissa J. Smith, Srinivasa Vittal Katikireddi, Kathryn Skivington and Shona Hilton

This blog post is based on the Evidence & Policy article, ‘Contextual influences on the role of evidence in e-cigarette recommendations: a multi-method analysis of international and national jurisdictions’.

The use of evidence in public health decision-making is not as straightforward as it may seem – people have different ideas of what constitutes ‘evidence’, and how it should be interpreted and used in different contexts. Even when there is agreement on what constitutes evidence, research has shown that the same evidence, used in different contexts can lead to different policy decisions. A current example of this is e-cigarette policies and their recommendations. Our Evidence and Policy article explores how context, broadly defined as the factors that influence decision-making, influences the role of evidence in developing recommendations and how it may contribute to different policy approaches.

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