Canada Research Chair in Knowledge Transfer and Exchange
Associate Professor, Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics
Member, Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis
Associate Member, Department of Political Science

John Lavis is the Canada Research Chair in Knowledge Transfer and Exchange, an Associate Professor (in both the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Department of Political Science), and a Member of the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis at McMaster University. His principal research interests include knowledge transfer and exchange in public policymaking environments and the politics of healthcare systems. He directs the Program in Policy Decision-Making (www.researchtopolicy.ca), a research program affiliated with McMaster’s Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis, and he wrote the report that underpins the chapter on “linking research to action” in the World Report on Knowledge for Better Health. He teaches an undergraduate course on the politics of healthcare systems for the Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) Programme at McMaster and he teaches a week-long module on “Promoting the use of research-based evidence in healthcare organizations” for Canada’s Executive Training for Research Application (EXTRA) program. He is President of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Advisory Committee on Health Research and a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) Advisory Committee on Health Research. He is Co-Editor of the newly re-launched Policy Briefs series co-published by the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies and the WHO-sponsored Health Evidence Network. He is a member of the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (AHSPR) Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee, the Cochrane Collaboration’s Effective Practice and Organization of Care (EPOC) Review Group, and the WHO-sponsored Evidence-Informed Policy Network (EVIPNet) Resource Group. John holds an MD from Queen's University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a PhD from Harvard University.

RESEARCH INTERESTS

• knowledge transfer and exchange in public policy-making environments  
• politics of health-care systems 

REPRESENTATIVE PUBLICATIONS

Lavis JN, Ross SE, Hurley JE, Hohenadel JM, Stoddart GL, Woodward CA, Abelson J.  Examining the role of health services research in public policymaking. The Milbank Quarterly 2002;80(1):125-154.

Lavis JN, Robertson D, Woodside JM, McLeod CB, Abelson J and the Knowledge Transfer Study Group. How can research organizations more effectively transfer research knowledge to decision makers? The Milbank Quarterly, 2003;81(2):221-248.

Lavis JN, Becerra Posada F, Haines A, Osei E.  Use of research to inofrm public policymaking.  The Lancet 2004;364:1615-1621.

Lavis JN, Davies HTO, Oxman A, Densi J-L, Golden-Biddle K, Ferlie E.  Towards systematic reviews that inform healthcare management and policymaking.  Journal of Health Services Research and Policy 2005;10(supplement 1):35-48.

Lavis JN, Lomas J, Hamid M, Sewankambo N. Assessing country-level efforts to link research to action. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2006; 84(8):620-628.

TEACHING ACTIVITIES

• Health Systems and Health Policy