Largest producers

A range of organizations produce grey literature related to public health, health policy and epidemiology and include:

Government health agencies
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes for Health in the United States, UK Department of Health
Non-profit organizations
Universities
Research centres
International agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS.
Health Institutes
Research establishments
Laboratories
Institutes
National governments
Corporations
Trade associations/Unions
Private publishers
Pressure groups
Political parties
Academia
Special interest groups
clinical practice guidelines 9CPGs); AHCPR, NIH, CDC, SAMHSA; professional assocs; AMA, ACP, ACOG, AAHP; insurers; HMOs/MCOs; academic medical centers, hospitals; clinics
Making the Most of Research Resources for HSR: HSRProj and HSRRApril

Producers cite policy and decision makers as their first priority. Decision-makers include members of Congress and congressional staff, federal and state agencies and regulators, and policy analysts. In the case of policymakers, grey literature is used more than non-grey literature because grey lit is generally more up to date and more accessible. Cost effective, timely data is often simply not available in the published literature. In addition, policy documents are generally not published in peer-reviewed journals. Grey literature materials of greatest relevance to policymakers are sourcebooks, chartbooks, evaluations, consensus reports, fact sheets, briefings, transcripts and issue briefs.

In the US, the “think tank” Research and Development (RAND) Corporation formed the RAND Health division to provide objective analysis to improve policy and decision-making through HSR, only in the 1960s. The Agency for Healthcare Policy and Research was created in 1989 and later re-authorised as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the leading federal agency for research on healthcare quality, costs, outcomes, and patient safety; while AcademyHealth, a leading professional society for health services researchers and health policy analysts was formed in 2000.

Early HSR was done by clinicians, economists and sociologists. Now health services researchers come from disciplines such as biostatistics, economics, public health, epidemiology, clinical sciences, psychology, sociology and other disparate areas such as engineering, decision theory, geography, medical informatics, operations research, pharmacy, anthropology, demographics, actuarial science and nutrition in addition to clinical medicine.

...There has been considerable interest within the health sector to improve access to the grey literature which has resulted in a number of centralized documentation centers that focus on collecting, preserving, appraising, and disseminating grey literature (Alberani & De Castro, 2001). Examples of these initiatives include: the New York Academy of Medicine’s Grey Literature Report (a health-related grey literature database) and the health-related Cabot database which is no longer accessible and whose service is under review due to issues with funding. Similar databases exist in other, potentially relevant sectors as well (e.g., the National Technical Information Service [NTIS] and the GreyLit Network). Additionally, there is a growing list of databases that contain grey literature together with published documents. Yet, organizations such as the National Library of Medicine recognize the impossibility of collecting all of the grey literature with potential relevance to health. Thus, it has focused its collections efforts on the publications of major national and international associations, institutes, and agencies. Publications of other organizations (such as regional, state and local associations) are collected more selectively, with emphasis on publications of broad interest to U.S. health professionals, those representing unique viewpoints, and others likely to be of historical interest....