This work package is about dissemination but not just in the form of presenting conference papers, report writing and journal publications; important as these are. There is a danger that the research community may simply accumulate evidence rather than address the ways in which society can become more responsive to, and more inclusive of, the health of people with activity limitations. Such oversight would replicate the very circumstances that constitute the disabling environments that we are concerned to address. The challenge of translating research into evidence-based advocacy, practice and policy - particularly in the pan-African context - needs to be systematically addressed. We recognise that the provision of an evidence base, even when well broadcasted, does not in itself produce better policy decisions, affect everyday practice or inform advocacy. Rather there are often evidence-policy-practice gaps, and addressing these gaps is also an objective of this WP.

WP5 will make the process of getting evidence into action a key part of our research and dissemination process. In each of the African countries and in Brussels we will hold a series of two-day workshops for key stakeholders and research team members, that presents key policy personnel with our findings and discusses the implications, as we understand them, for health policy and service development. These workshops will occur in the last 6 months of the project. We will invite representatives of DPOs, NGOs and relevant government ministries, as well as representatives from the EU, WHO, World Bank and other relevant people, identified on a country-by-country basis, to attend these workshops. The function of these workshops will be to identify the barriers and facilitators to implementing our findings in health policy. Each workshop will thus produce data that has arisen from thinking through the gaps in the evidence-policy-action sequence. These results and the results from our field research and policy review will contribute to the production of a Handbook to that will guide policy regarding how to inclusion the needs of people with activity limitations when developing health policy.

Our research findings will be published in a range of academic journals including those concerned with health policy and management, disability, public health and international development (See Section 3.2). These findings will also be prevented at relevant international conferences, discussion forums and appropriate networks (see Section 3.2). The results of this project will also feed into a broad range of undergraduate and postgraduate teaching programmes that will influence the training of future health professionals (See Section 3.2).

Contact / Work Package leader:

• Trinity College Dublin, Centre for Global Health:

Conference

• See video clips from Participation in World Conference in Social Determinants of Health (Rio in October 2011)