When addressing socio-scientific wicked problems, there is a need to negotiate across and through multiple modes of evidence, particularly technical expertise local knowledge. Democratic innovations, such as deliberative citizens’ juries, have been proposed means managing these tensions way creating representative, fairer decision making. But are questions around participatory processes, the ut...

Background Policy-making can be described as a complex decisionmaking process involving different actors engaged in negotiating their interests [1] and promoting different types of evidence. Policy informed by research evidence is widely seen as a good thing. However Monaghan [2] indicated that ‘Policy-makers may fish for evidence, select the beneficial bits and throw back those that are un-req...

This paper presents the SHOMAS multiagent system that provides guidance on leisure facilities and suggestions for shopping in malls. The multiagent architecture incorporates reactive and deliberative agents that take decisions automatically. This paper presents a deliberative agent that provides suggestions in execution time, with the help of case-based planners. This agent is described togethe...

Background National community health worker (CHW) programmes are increasingly regarded as an integral component of primary healthcare (PHC) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). At the interface of the formal health system and communities, CHW programmes evolve in context specific ways, with unique cadres and a variety of vertical and horizontal relationships. These programmes need...

This article is part of a series written for people responsible for making decisions about health policies and programmes and for those who support these decision makers. Policymakers have limited resources for developing--or supporting the development of--evidence-informed policies and programmes. These required resources include staff time, staff infrastructural needs (such as access to a lib...

This article is part of a series written for people responsible for making decisions about health policies and programmes and for those who support these decision makers. In this article, we address strategies to inform and engage the public in policy development and implementation. The importance of engaging the public (both patients and citizens) at all levels of health systems is widely reco...

BACKGROUND Knowledge translation platforms (KTPs), which are partnerships between policymakers, stakeholders, and researchers, are being established in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) to enhance evidence-informed health policymaking (EIHP). This study aims to gain a better understanding of the i) activities conducted by KTPs, ii) the way in which KTP leaders, policymakers, and stakehol...