The French experiential knowledge resource center: a 3-year scope and use evaluation

Issue

The national committee for experiential knowledge in health promotion (EKHP) aims to promote EKHP and improve professional practices. Since 2017, the committee has developed methods and toolkits to formalize EKHP capitalization. In May 2022, an online resource center was launched (www.capitalisationsante.fr).

Description of the problem

The resource center hosts capitalization works (∼12-page documents detailing one HP intervention each) submitted by trained practitioners and peer-reviewed. Its 3 objectives are: promoting EKHP, fostering a community of practice and making transferable data available. After three years of operation, an evaluation was conducted combining website analytics, an online questionnaire, and individual and group interviews. Key questions were: Who uses the resource center and for what purposes? What are its strengths and weaknesses? To what extent do users reshare the works?

Results

The resource center hosts 175+ capitalization works and 13 cross-analyses, with 98,000+ visitors. Among respondents, 30.4% had read at least one work. Main reasons for consulting works were enriching HP knowledge and finding ideas to design or adapt a project. There are four types of knowledge use: conceptual (deepening understanding of HP issues), instrumental (informing or evolving a project), strategic (through advocacy), and processual (reflexivity through the capitalization process). Strengths included relevance and accessibility; weaknesses included heterogeneity across works. Notably, 61.4% of respondents had never reshared a work.

Lessons

The resource center shows that a structured, bottom-up approach to experiential knowledge can generate meaningful knowledge use. However, the low resharing rate reveals a gap between accessing and circulating knowledge that passive dissemination cannot address. Concrete actions are planned for 2026: updating production tools, optimizing web navigation, and creating active support mechanisms to foster appropriation.

Key messages

• Structured access to experiential knowledge fosters diverse uses among HP practitioners, but active dissemination strategies are needed to move beyond individual consultation.

• The French EKHP resource center offers a replicable bottom-up model for valorizing practitioners’ experiential knowledge, with lessons learned directly applicable to other national HP systems.