Unemployment and health, 1975-1987: a case study in the relationship between research and policy debate

This study follows the progress of an academic controversy, on the consequences of unemployment for physical health, which took place in Great Britain between 1975 and 1987, treating it as a case study in the relationship between research and policy debate. There are three aims to the study: (1) to document its progress in detail in order to clarify the interactions between its "academic" and its "political" aspects (2) to investigate the extent to which "quality" as defined by the academic community influences the impact of research on policy debate (3) to propose the outline of a model of policy-related academic debate which can be applied to other cases and therefore contribute to the study of the relationship between research and policy. The study uses a combination of interviewing, documentary research and participant observation, and sets published papers within their context of the formal and informal relationships between researchers, professionals, policy makers, pressure groups and the media. It is guided by a combination of two theoretical perspectives: the models of the construction of social problems proposed by Spector and Kitsuse and Downs, and the "translation" model in the sociology of scientific knowledge drawn from recent work by French scholars such as Latour and Callon. It is concluded that the application of this combination of perspectives leads to a reformulation of questions about the relationship between research and policy. The acceptance of scientific findings appears to depend upon actor networks which are at least partly constructed as a result of policy-decisions, so that "truth" and "policy-relevance" come to be seen as mutually constitutive