Background: The purpose of this study was to examine the use of several recently conducted systematic reviews on the effectiveness of public health interventions in the development of new provincial public health mandatory guidelines.

Methods: A cross-sectional, observational study using a telephone administered survey was used in this study. All those participating in a Provincial Technical Review Group (assigned the task of developing new provincial public health mandatory guidelines) during the winter of 2000 were asked to participate in this study. This included public health managers, directors, and Medical Officers of Health from across Ontario, as well as health services researchers and consultants with the Ministry of Health. The questionnaire was modified from previously validated research utilization tools and tested for test-re-test reliability prior to its use. All dependent and independent variables were measured using a five point Likert Scale. The data will be analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple linear regression analysis.

Results: Data is currently being collected for this study. Expected completion date for the telephone surveys is mid July, 2000.

Conclusions: The results of this study will demonstrate the current influence of systematic reviews on the development of health policy decisions at the provincial level. The influence of systematic reviews at this level of policy decision-making has not previously been examined. These results will also assist health services researchers in understanding the information needs of policy decision-makers, and will contribute to the development of effective dissemination strategies at the provincial policy-maker level.