r2P (Research to Practice)

“r2P” is a term that CRE-MSD has adopted following the lead of NIOSH. Although it is seldom defined, the concept overlaps with many of the ideas of Knowledge Translation, Knowledge Transfer and Exchange, and Community of Practice. The underlying concept is that in order to achieve successful implementation of research into practice (r2P), you need to have an interplay of, and give equal weight to three core elements -- the level and nature of the evidence, the context or environment into which the research is to be placed, and the method or way in which the process is facilitated (Kitson, Harvey, and McCormack, 1998).

CRE-MSD’s Research-to-Practice (r2P) initiative emphasizes our commitment and dedication to stakeholder involvement and partner collaborations on our research. It is putting into practice the Centre’s tagline: “Research Meeting Practice to Prevent MSD” and mirrors a recent NIOSH initiative in the USA.

R2P is a way of conducting research to involve our workplace stakeholders and help ensure that our research is relevant to their needs, problems and issues. Our research is collaborative, action-oriented, and involves the co-production of knowledge by researchers and the end users of our research.

Our goal is to increase the awareness of research findings, develop useful products such as guidelines and factsheets, translate our research findings so that our audiences can use them, and evaluate and demonstrate the effectiveness of these efforts in reducing workplace musculoskeletal disorders.

The Centre involves its stakeholders in the research process; we see this as a particularly effective knowledge transfer strategy. The Centre’s stakeholder partners include professionals or consultants with the health and safety associations (HSAs), ergonomists, workplace parties, management, employer groups, workers and organized-labour representatives. With our collaborative research projects, the partners help formulate the research question, help with the design, proposal writing, data collection, interpretation, writing-up, tool development, and dissemination of the research findings.

We have now had many years of experience with having collaborative research partnerships with the HSAs, and these fruitful research partnerships will continue. These partnerships have been an opportunity for the HSAs to have access to the best current knowledge to inform their products and training initiatives. For example:

• Research in the transportation sector was facilitated by close contact and consultation with the Transportation Health & Safety Association, the Teamsters Union, and six transportation companies in two sub-sectors.
• Research in the electrical and utilities sector was led by that sector’s health and safety association (E&USA). This project looked at both the utility of ergonomic safety groups to reduce the risks of MSDs, as well as the impact of Safety Climate on reducing both injuries and MSDs.
• Research with the mining sector have identified concerns with underground mining vehicles. This research has resulted in interactions with the vehicle manufactures on changing the vehicle’s design.
• The Construction Safety Association of Ontario (CSAO) has been involved in nearly six years of research studies with us, identifying innovations to reduce musculoskeletal disorders and determining their most effective dissemination pathways.
• Stakeholder partnerships have also been very productive with Centre-funded research projects in the law-enforcement, mining, health-care, office, and forestry sectors.

Excellent websites on r2P, knowledge transfer and knowledge translation include:
http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/r2p/ 
http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/35412.html