Nothing is so impactful as good theory: Evidence for the impact of the social identity approach to health on policy and practice

This research sought to evaluate the uptake of research on social identity and health among policymakers and practitioners. It also sought to identify the research outputs that have had the greatest impact and to understand the nature of their impact. Policy impact tools in Elsevier's SciVal institutional subscription were utilised in combination with Overton. We extracted all articles within the social identity approach to health topic 1996–2023 as defined by SciVal, along with all citing policy documents as captured by Overton. Summary statistics and trends for this topic along with seven comparable topics were also extracted. More than 1 in 5 articles on the social identity approach to health are cited in policy documents, a proportion that is greater than that reported in other areas of applied psychology; for example, theory of planned behaviour, self-determination theory, and ego-depletion. Policy documents that advocated for community and social interventions to improve population mental health were particularly likely to draw on this research. Overall, the paper makes two general contributions. First we demonstrate the importance of social identity approach to health research for social/community interventions. We found that social identity and health research has had an outsized impact on policy and discuss several features of the theory and literature that may underpin this impact. Second, we provide a novel method for evaluating research impact that could be utilised across disciplines.