Shaping Decisions with Reading-Based Information

Abstract

Previous research has documented the fact that policy makers underutilize social science research literature in shaping their decisions. The two factors most often identified as accounting for this utilization gap are quality of research and organizational/political constraints. A third factor that has received relatively less attention is barriers to accessing relevant literature. To determine the importance ofaccessproblems among mental health professionals, a national sample (N = 367) of community mental health center (CMHC) executives was surveyed regarding attitudes and practices with respect to published social science research. Thefindings revealed that CMHC policy makers (1) consider published literature as important relative to other sources of information; (2) have difficulty accessing desired information via traditional means (e.g., personal and institutional librariesf, and (3) are generally unfamiliar with currently available information accessing technologies (i.e., computer-based bibliographic retrieval systems). Thesefindings suggest the need for greater emphasis on access barriers in a model predicting utilization of social science research in mental health policy formulation.