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Clinical Epidemiology & Biostatistics

John N. Lavis

Academic Interests

John N. Lavis, MD PhD, is the Director of the McMaster Health Forum (www.mcmasterhealthforum.org), Associate Director of the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis, and a Professor (in both the Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Department of Political Science) at McMaster University. His principal research interests include knowledge transfer and exchange in public policymaking environments and the politics of health systems. He led the creation and oversees the continuous updating of Health Systems Evidence (www.healthsystemsevidence.org), the world’s most comprehensive, free access point for high-quality evidence about how to strengthen or reform health systems, or how to get cost-effective programs, services and drugs to those who need them. He directs the Program in Policy Decision-Making (www.researchtopolicy.org) and oversees the Policy Liaison Office of the Canadian Cochrane Centre. He teaches an undergraduate course on the politics of health systems for the Bachelor of Health Sciences (Honours) programme at McMaster, a simulations course in the same programme, and the doctoral seminar for the PhD in Health Policy programme. 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 and runs one-day and two-day workshops on using research evidence for governments and international agencies. He is Co-Chair of the World Health Organization (WHO)-sponsored Evidence-Informed Policy Network (EVIPNet) Global Steering Group, President of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Advisory Committee on Health Research, a member of the WHO Advisory Committee on Health Research, and a member of the Cochrane Collaboration’s Effective Practice and Organization of Care (EPOC) Review Group. He holds an MD from Queen's University, an MSc from the London School of Economics, and a PhD from Harvard University.

Current HRM and Health Policy Graduate Students
Liz Alvarez, Ph.D.
Daniel Patino Lugo, Ph.D.
Edward Gariba, PhD
Jessica Shearer, Ph.D.
Kaelan Moat, Ph.D.
Nathan Mendes Souza, Ph.D.

Recent HRM Graduate Students
John McLennan, Ph.D. (2005)
Martha Paynter, M.Sc. (2008)
Jonathan Sachs, M.Sc. (2009)
Jennifer Boyko, Ph.D. (2010)
Michael G. Wilson, Ph.D. (2010)

Selected Publications

1. Lavis JN, Røttingen JA, Bosch-Capblanch X, Atun R, El-Jardali F, Gilson L, Lewin S, Oliver S, Ongolo-Zogo P, Haines A. Guidance for evidence-informed policies about health systems: 2) Linking guidance development to policy development. PLoS Medicine 2012; 9(3): e1001186. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001186.
2. Lavis JN, Oxman AD, Lewin S, Fretheim A: SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking (STP). Introduction. Health Research Policy and Systems; 2009, 7(Suppl 1):I1 doi:10.1186/1478-4505-7-S1-I1.
3. Lavis JN. How can we support the use of systematic reviews in policymaking? PLoS Medicine 2009; 6(11): e1000141. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000141.
4. Lavis JN, Oxman AD, Moynihan R, Paulsen E. Evidence-informed health policy: 1. Synthesis of findings from a multi-method study of organizations that support the use of research evidence. Implementation Science 2008, 3:53.
5. 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.
6. Lavis JN, Research, public policymaking, and knowledge-translation processes: Canadian efforts to build bridges. The Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions; 2006; 26(1):37-45.
7. Lavis JN, Davies HTO, Gruen RL, Walshe K, Farquhar CM. Working within and beyond the Cochrane Collaboration to make systematic reviews more useful to healthcare managers and policymakers. Healthcare Policy; 2006; 1(2):21-33.
8. Lavis JN, Davies HTO, Oxman A, Denis 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.
9. Lavis JN, Becerra Posada F, Haines A, Osei E. Use of research to inform public policymaking. The Lancet 2004; 364:1615-1621
10. 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.

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