Explaining the Evidence-Based Policy in Educating and Promoting Students’ Health: A Narrative Review

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Extended Abstract
Background
In recent years, the Education Organization has tried to pay special attention to school health education. In this regard, it is necessary to pay attention to the types of policies and the application of the appropriate type. Evidence-based policymaking is an approach to making policies that consider the political context, availability of resources, and people's and clients' experiences to provide the right evidence at the right time in the right language for policymaking. The prominence of the relationship between science and politics has increased interest in the perspective of evidence-based policymaking in education. Four main factors have played a key role in the emergence of this policy approach: obtaining a significant amount of evidence related to the policy issue; the increasing interest of political leaders to pay attention to the evidence in policymaking; establishing new budgetary mechanisms in line with the use of evidence; and devising new tools for obtaining accurate evidence. Evidence-based policymaking is a type of policy based on valid, timely, and appropriate evidence. Studies of students' health promotion have shown that the Ministry of Education's plans requires a review based on the principles and standards of creating effective and efficient curricula. Some studies also show that school health education has been unsuccessful, and other measures should be considered to change behavior. Considering the need to review the existing approaches and policies of the education system in providing, training, and improving students' health, as well as the key position and importance that evidence-based policy can have in the effectiveness of education and health promotion among students, the current research has explained the nature of evidence-based policy in promoting and educating the health of students in schools. Also, a systematic review of previous studies highlights the importance of evidence-based policy in promoting and educating health in schools. This study aimed to explain the effect of evidence-based policy in education and health promotion for students.
Methods
This narrative review was conducted using the SPIDER framework. The statistical population included 114 Persian and English articles published from 2010 to 2022 indexed in databases, including ERIC, ScienceDirect, Sage, SID, Irandoc, Magiran, and Medline. We included the articles that described and analyzed evidence-based policy and its approaches in education and health promotion in schools. The aim of this research was to explain the place of evidence-based policy in the education and health promotion of students. Out of 114 domestic and foreign studies identified, 55 studies were excluded after screening the title and abstract. Finally, 59 eligible articles were selected as the sample. The texts of the articles were analyzed using Sterberg's thematic analysis method, and the codes and themes were extracted and categorized.
Result
The results of coding the findings of selected articles showed that 59 concepts and six themes could be extracted. Evidence-based policymaking in educating and promoting student health is categorized into six themes: the necessity for evidence-based policymaking, which includes the relationship between science and politics, evidence of the source of knowledge, prevention of intuitive decisions, comprehensiveness, diversity of students, diversity of health cultures, social accountability of health education, new budgeting mechanisms, the introduction of policy into the educational system, the necessity of continuous improvement of educational policy, and the lack of a theoretical leadership for policymaking. The second theme is the identity of evidence-based policymaking (such as the governmentality of evidence-based policy in education and promotion of students' health, the depoliticization of issues, overcoming ideology, and at the same time a combination of the cycle of stages in connection with each other, as well as the rationality of evidence-based policy in education and promotion of students' health). The third theme is the requirements of evidence-based policymaking, including support of senior managers, new management approaches, assigning new responsibilities to senior managers, institutionalization of application of research results, organization of knowledge transfer structures, stability of management, transparency in policymaking, evidence validation systems, promotion of scientific competence of policymakers, and motivation of policymakers and researchers. The fourth theme includes the impetus for evidence-based policymaking such as global experiences, the strategy of persuading policymakers by the scientific community, the focus of the scientific community on the methods of understanding problems by policymakers, the cooperation of researchers and policymakers, the available sources of evidence, the quality and validity of the available evidence, the ease of research in education and health promotion, high-capacity researchers, modern technologies, an educated population, methodological advances in research, and knowledge-oriented. The fifth theme is the barriers to evidence-based policymaking, which encompasses the lack of political determination, opinion-based policymaking, high concentration and administrative paperwork, council decisions, the complexity of policymakers' trust in research evidence, conventional wisdom and massism, urgency at the time of decision, subjects' lack of trust in researchers in gathering evidence, economy and lack of resources, internal political communication and the interference of the interests of policy beneficiaries, insufficient governmental educational measures in line with the use of evidence-based policymaking, the role of civil groups in policymaking, social networks, the dominant cultural discourse, the entanglement of education and policymaking, low certainty and high uncertainty, confidence, specific problems of public policy design and lack of proper incentives for researchers. The sixth theme is the consequences of evidence-based policymaking including high quality education, educational efficiency, combining experience and expertise with evidence, and taking the best decision.
Conclusion
Based on the results of the research, evidence-based policymaking in the promotion and education of students' health is a logical process in governmental type policymaking in the direction of depoliticization and valid evidence. This should happen through the motivation and support of senior managers and based on new management approaches and the motivation of researchers, relying on drivers such as global experiences, scientific methods of understanding problems, methodologies, and modern technologies. The main limitation of this research is the narrative review of previous studies and not using other data collection tools. In line with the results of the present research, it is suggested that policymakers in the realm of education and health promotion of students pay attention to all the elements of the policy model and consider the contribution of each one in the policymaking. In this way, they should put evidence-based data in their policy program so that the expected consequences can be achieved. Future researchers can re-examine the findings of this research through a qualitative research based on interviews with experts and through quantitative research to investigate the possibility of its implementation.