Aligning research to meet policy objectives for migrant families: an example from Canada

BACKGROUND: 'Evidence-based policy making' for immigrants is a complicated undertaking. In striving toward this goal, federal Canadian partners created the Metropolis Project in 1995 to optimize a two-way transfer of knowledge (researchers – policy makers) within five Canadian Centres of Excellence focused on migrants newly arrived in Canada. Most recently, Metropolis federal partners, including the Public Health Agency of Canada, defined one of six research priority areas as, immigrant 'families, children, and youth'. In order to build on previous work in the partnership, we sought to determine what has been studied within this research-policy partnership about immigrant 'families, children, and youth' since its inception. METHODS: Annual reports and working papers produced in the five Centres of Excellence between 1996–2006 were culled. Data on academic works were extracted, results coded according to eleven stated federal policy priority themes, and analyzed descriptively. RESULTS: 139 academic works were reviewed. All federal priority themes, but few specific policy questions were addressed. The greatest volume of policy relevant works were identified for Services (n = 42) and Education and Cultural Identity (n = 39) priority themes. CONCLUSION: Research conducted within the last 10 years is available to inform certain, not all, federal policy questions. Greater specificity in federal priorities can be expected to more clearly direct future research within this policy-research partnership.