Health research is indispensable for improving health and health equity and contributing to overall development. Many developing countries have made substantial investments in building and enhancing their capacities for research in health and related fields, and these efforts have been supported and extended by programmes of development agencies and research institutions located in high-income countries. Despite decades of such efforts, and notwithstanding some notable examples of success, the overall picture of progress is a mixed one.
Monitoring equity and research policy
No development without research: A challenge for capacity strengthening
Global Forum for Health Research, August 2005
Priorities for research to take forward the health equity policy agenda
WHO Task Force on Research Priorities for Equity in Health
Despite impressive improvements in aggregate indicators of health globally over the past few decades, health inequities between and within countries have persisted, and in many regions and countries are widening. We recommend that highest priority be given to research in five general areas: (1) global factors and processes that affect health equity and/or constrain what countries can do to address health inequities within their own borders; (2) societal and political structures and relationships that differentially affect people's chances of being healthy within a given society; (3) interrelationships between factors at the individual level and within the social context that increase or decrease the likelihood of achieving and maintaining good health; (4) characteristics of the health care system that influence health equity and (5) effective policy interventions to reduce health inequity in the first four areas.
Reviewing national priorities for child health research in sub-Saharan Africa
Health Research Policy and Systems 2005, 3:7
There are few systematically developed national research priorities for child health that exist in sub-Saharan Africa. Children's interests may be distorted in prioritisation processes that combine all age groups. Future development of priorities requires a common reporting framework and specific consideration of childhood priorities, according to a review of national priorities for child health research published in Health Research Policy and Systems 2005. The research reviewed existing national child health research priorities in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the processes used to determine them.
Applying policy analysis in tackling implementation gaps
Paper Presented to Forum 9, Global Forum for Health Research, Mumbai, September 12-16th, 2005 pp 1-16
Ultimately any policy or health system change, whether generated from within or outside national environments, has to work through those responsible for service delivery, and their interactions with the intended beneficiaries of those changes. Yet we continue to know too little about the experiences of these groups, including how their words, actions and beliefs shape the practice of implementation. This paper used policy analysis to understand these implementation gaps.
Grading evidence and recommendations for public health interventions
Report by the Health Development Agency, London
This provisional framework provides a practical and transparent method for deriving grades of recommendation for public health interventions, based on a synthesis of all relevant supporting evidence from research.
Applying policy analysis in tackling implementation gaps
Ultimately any policy or health system change, whether generated from within or outside national environments, has to work through those responsible for service delivery, and their interactions with the intended beneficiaries of those changes. Yet we continue to know too little about the experiences of these groups, including how their words, actions and beliefs shape the practice of implementation. This paper used policy analysis to understand these implementation gaps.
Inequalities in health in developing countries: Challenges for public health research
Critical Public Health, Volume 15, Number 1 / March 2005
"Inequalities in health are important for overall well-being even in developing countries. But research into this area has lagged behind developed countries partly because of the lack of routine and longitudinal data. Insights from developed countries have highlighted how risk factors are clustered around poor people and the ways in which pathways of poverty and poor health are formed during their lives. This is being overlaid by the process of globalization that seems to be accentuating these processes. The paucity of reliable routine data should encourage public health researchers in developing countries to stretch their methodological imagination to include qualitative insights in order to facilitate a more probing investigation that moves beyond describing inequalities but begins to describe how they are produced and reproduced."
Pathways to “Evidence-Informed” Policy and Practice: A Framework for Action
Plos medicine, Volume 2, Issue 7, July 2005
The contemporary public health effort sees much debate about the concepts of “evidence” and “the evidence base”, and the usefulness and relevance of such terms to both policymaking and practice. A key challenge to public health is to better contextualize evidence for more effective policymaking and practice. Theory on the translation of research findings into policy and practice, and on knowledge utilization, offers only part of the solution to this complex task. The policymaking context is highly political and rapidly changing, and depends on a variety of factors, inputs, and relationships.
"Learning by doing" is key to achieving universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, says WHO
To achieve universal access to HIV prevention and treatment, the scientific and public health community must respond quickly to developments on the ground to narrow the gap between discovery and intervention. Dr Charlie Gilks, head of treatment, prevention and scale up at the World Health Organization's (WHO) HIV/AIDS Department, stressed the need to "learn by doing" at the 3rd International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment, a biennial scientific meeting, in Rio de Jeneiro, Brazil. Gilks emphasized the importance of research on HIV prevention in addition to more effective ways to deliver treatment. "While we work to keep people alive and healthy with the tools we have now, we also need to ensure that future generations will have access to better prevention technologies," said Gilks, referring to the importance of vaccine and microbicide research.
Global Forum Releases New Report on Forum 8, Mexico, November
The first report published by the Global Forum on an annual meeting, Health Research for the Millennium Development Goals, summarizes the main themes of Forum 8 from plenary presentations and includes a CD-ROM with all the presentations, media and final documentation of the meeting. The report clearly demonstrates that a great deal is known about the kinds of research that are urgently required to accelerate and intensify the efforts necessary to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The Global Forum for Health Research is an independent international foundation based in Geneva. The report and CD-ROM can be ordered or downloaded from the organization's website: http://www.globalforumhealth.org