{
  "abstract": "Background When governments are involved in public health research, they can potentially shape the directions and processes of the research. This can have a beneficial, harmful, or neutral impact on the research process, with broad and far-reaching implications. For example, governments may influence the research findings, the outcomes generated from those findings, the validity of the evidence, policy choices made, and, consequently, population health outcomes. Balancing the positive and negative aspects of government involvement is complex, and little is known about influence within the context of government-academic collaborations. This issue is particularly salient for public health research that may lead to government choices that impact the unhealthy commodity industries, such as alcohol and ultra-processed foods. Therefore, our study aimed to deepen understanding of the context in which government influence occurs in government-commissioned food and beverage-related public health research.Methods We conducted 12 semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Study participants were recruited following their interaction with an online survey on the same topic. The population comprised individuals who identified as being involved in government-commissioned food and beverage-related public health research and included people from academia and government who were based in the UK, Australia and North America. The audio data was transcribed and extracted to NVivo 12, coded (10% double-coded), grouped and analysed using thematic analysis.Results Participants’ experiences covered a range of research domains, including alcohol, nutrition, food education, and sugar taxation. The examples spanned decades, with many participants having multiple experiences from both government and academic positions. Government influence on public health research took multiple and diverse forms, ranging from overt attempts to change the research process to subtle manifestations embedded within a research culture. Specifically, the results identified how interactions at an individual level can be as powerful in shaping research directions and processes as the more well-described system-level influence, such as political imperatives. Perspectives on what constitutes acceptable interactions and what may support more beneficial interactions with government were varied and nuanced, reinforcing that context is a key component of this issue.Conclusion Our study highlights the complexity of creating policy-relevant research and the importance of context when governments are involved in public health research. Future research is now required to inform guideline development to protect the research integrity of government-academic collaborations so we can generate high-quality, robust evidence to facilitate government policy and decision-making.",
  "authors": [
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "School of Public Health, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Helen Senior"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "School of Public Health, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Michael Waller"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Institute of Population Health, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Simon Capewell"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "School of Public Health, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "Katherine Cullerton"
    }
  ],
  "title": "P33 When academics and government collaborate to produce policy-relevant evidence: it isn’t all about politics",
  "uid": "cf585b5c-6e25-5458-bb3f-f2359d67925f"
}