Can Research Solve Problems?

When I was in graduate school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I was motivated to become a better researcher because I saw the promise research held for solving problems. I worked with principal investigators hired by the federal government to ensure welfare reform did what it claimed to do, researchers in a state’s department of health who wanted to understand why preventive services designed to help low-income women were not being utilized, and the Centers for Disease Control to better understand behavioral risk factors, complementary and alternative medicine, and more.

Graduate school can help you to acquire a robust research skillset, but I was less prepared for the work of translating the findings to something actionable. What I came to realize many years later was that academic research frequently shined a light on the problems but less often offered illumination on their solutions.

The decision to work in Washington, DC proved fruitful and exciting because I was surrounded by people who were “taking a pulse” on something one day and addressing the issue in the morning. Things didn’t always move that quickly, of course, but speed was necessarily faster for some clients. Imagine an animal disease outbreak that requires quick communication to the public so they understand milk is safe to drink. Or the need to measure and engineer a response to misinformation about human health risk. These issues, like many we address in our work, cannot wait for researchers and communicators to connect the dots.

To answer the question, “Can research solve problems,” the answer is “yes,” with a caveat. We believe research can solve problems but it must be designed with a solution (or, solutions) in mind.