How schools and workplaces use evidence to navigate health and wellbeing investment decisions – a scoping review

What the paper says

Purpose Despite increased calls for greater health and wellbeing promotion in workplaces and schools, little is known about how these organisations make use of evidence to support health and wellbeing investment decisions. Design/methodology/approach A scoping review was conducted to explore how workplaces and schools use evidence in their health and wellbeing investments decisions and to synthesise findings across a range of OECD countries. Findings A total of 27 studies from nine countries met inclusion criteria. Included studies were analysed thematically. Both studies of schools and workplaces faced challenges in identifying and using a variety of forms of evidence, due to insufficient time and human resources. We generated three themes based on the data extracted to explain how schools and workplaces used evidence to invest in health and wellbeing. These were ‘Evidence-based provision adapted to context’ which looks at how evidence is used or not used in tandem with context of the decision; ‘Having expertise’, which reports decision-makers seeking expertise in their selection of evidence or reliance on their experiences to make a decision related to health and wellbeing; and ‘Challenging the status quo’ which shows instances where evidence could be used to challenge decision-making and current wellbeing practice or prioritise different wellbeing areas. These findings highlight how organisational politics shapes which health and wellbeing evidence decision-makers choose to use-or ignore. Originality/value This review highlights how and why schools and workplaces choose to invest in health and wellbeing initiatives and how evidence use affects their selection. It shows how resources and power dynamics shape evidence use in decision-making processes about wellbeing and goes beyond seeing evidence as solely helping organisations to solve a specific problem.