Translating research into public policy.

Influencing and informing public policy are explicit goals of active living research. Active living researchers, motivated by a desire to improve health, often wonder why their findings do not translate more readily into changes in the ''real world'' of local, state, and federal policies. The California Center for Public Health Advocacy (CCPHA) is a nonpartisan nonprofit research and advocacy organization established in 1999 specifically to raise awareness about critical public health issues and mobilize communities to promote the establishment of effective state and local health policies. As the Executive Director of the CCPHA and a longtime public health advocate, I see two main reasons why research is not more readily translated into public policies: research is only one factor that influences the political process by which public policies are enacted, and researchers and advocates often have little experience working closely with one another. Nonetheless, research and researchers have a critical role to play at key points in the policy development process. To highlight that role, I describe here four crucial steps in the policy development process where our Center has used research during the last 9 years to help lead statewide advocacy campaigns on three far-reaching issues in California: getting soda and junk food out of schools (2000–2005), increasing funding for physical education (2006), and requiring chain restaurants to post calorie information on menus and menu boards (2007–2008). Our experience points toward ways that researchers and advocates