The research to health policy cycle: a tool for better management of chronic noncommunicable diseases.

Effectively responding to the global epidemic of noncommunicable disease will require a new research paradigm that integrates decision-makers into every step of the work. We present a systematic, multidisciplinary, staged research framework that involves setting priorities, designing, pilot testing and implementing novel interventions, and translating the lessons learned for clinicians and other stakeholders. This framework could be used by health services researchers in other areas to increase the likelihood that their research will be incorporated into health policy. Used together with existing administrative data sets, this framework has the potential to create virtual "health policy laboratories" in which novel, cost-effective, equitable and efficacious approaches to improving health are identified and validated.