The role of the opinion leader research process in informing policy making

What is it about?

Opinion leader research (OLR) has been widely used in public health to identify influential persons or organizations to affect health care practice, inform policy making processes and to help shape communication strategies. We used OLR to gather information related to barriers and possible solutions to guide strategic engagement for strengthening policy making for improved maternal, infant, and young child nutrition practices in five Southeast Asian countries—Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Timor-Leste and Thailand. In most countries, nutrition policies and policymaker interest exist, but effective implementation and/or enforcement of current policies is weak.

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Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash

Photo by Scott Graham on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This article aims to share our experience in and lessons learned from using opinion leader research (OLR) as an advocacy tool: It helped to identify opinion leaders with interest and influence to affect nutrition-related policies, it raised opinion leaders’ interest in nutrition and it identified themes that would help to generate political priority setting. Based on our experience, we recommend OLR as a strategic activity for informing and generating support for nutrition policy making processes.