This Primer contains tools and resources to help navigate the medical research and development (R&D) paradigm. The Primer provides information on discovery research; translational research; clinical research; regulatory application and approval; and non-profit actors and their roles in the R&D process.
Useful Resources
Getting Started: A Medical Research and Development Primer
FasterCures: 2012
Global Health Primer
Bio Ventures For Global Health (BVGH): 2013
The Global Health Primer connects the innovators that drive research and development for new drugs, vaccines and diagnostics to the neglected diseases where innovation is desperately needed. It provides a source of compiled and synthesised information for 25 neglected diseases of the developing world and the drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics in use or in development for the management of these diseases. The Primer tracks and analyses progress in global health research and development, provides an evidence base to support decision making, policy change and action, and brings new innovators to the table to address the main medical needs of poor people.
Rapid Retention Survey Toolkit: Designing Evidence-Based Incentives for Health Workers
CapacityPlus: 2012
In the context of severe health worker shortages in rural areas, this toolkit is intended to help health leaders find out what motivates health workers to accept posts in rural areas and to stay there. The toolkit builds on the World Health Organisation’s global policy recommendations for rural retention and is based on the discrete choice experiment, a powerful research method that identifies the trade-offs health professionals are willing to make between specific job characteristics and determines their preferences for various incentive packages, including the probability of accepting a post in a rural health facility. The toolkit guides human resources managers through a survey process to rapidly assess health professional students’ and health workers’ motivational preferences to accept a position and continue working in underserved facilities. It allows for rapid data-gathering and analysis, and the results can be used to create evidence-based incentive packages. It includes step-by-step instructions, sample formats, and examples that can easily be adapted to a specific country context, including survey planning, survey design, survey instrument development using a specialised software programme, survey administration, data analysis and interpretation, and how to present results to stakeholders.
Where there is no lawyer: Guidance for fairer contract negotiation in collaborative research partnerships
Marais D, Toohey J, Edwards D and Jsselmuiden CI: COHRED, 2013
Recent snapshot surveys of research institutions in the African and Asian regions have revealed some significant gaps in the contracting and contract management capacity of low- and middle-income country (LMIC) institutions in these regions. Many institutions had not previously considered research contracting to be a legal issue and reported having no specialist legal expertise, with the result that contractual terms and conditions were often poorly understood. Without adequate legal capacity, contract negotiations can lead to agreements which disadvantage the LMIC partner. This guidance booklet is aimed at optimising research institution building through better contracts and contracting in research partnerships. It highlights the key issues for consideration when entering into formalised research partnerships, and provides tools and resources for negotiating fairer research contracts. Better contract negotiation expertise in LMIC institutions will help improve the distribution of benefits of collaborative research, such as overhead costs, data ownership, institutional capacity in research management, technology transfer, and intellectual property rights.
Consolidated guidelines on the use of antiretroviral drugs for treating and preventing HIV infection
World Health Organisation: 2013
These consolidated guidelines provide guidance on the diagnosis of HIV infection, the care of people living with HIV and the use of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for treating and preventing HIV infection. They are structured along the continuum of HIV testing, care and treatment. Behavioural, structural and biomedical interventions that do not involve the use of ARV drugs are not covered in these guidelines. The 2013 guidelines combine and harmonise recommendations from a range of World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines and other documents. Comprehensive guidance is now provided on using ARV drugs across age groups and populations of adults, pregnant and breastfeeding women, adolescents, children and key populations. The guidelines also aim to consolidate and update clinical, service delivery and programmatic guidance. Consistent with previous WHO guidelines, the new guidelines are based on a public health approach to the further scaling up of ARV drugs for treatment and prevention that considers feasibility and effectiveness across a variety of resource-limited settings.
Global Research Nurses Website
Global Health Network
Global Research Nurses is a free network for all nurses with an interest in research. The aim is to give nurses the support, guidance, information and peer support they need to conduct their roles and enhance their careers as nurses working in research. Global Health Research Nurses offers four facilities: 1. A professional network where you can find colleagues nearby or across continents, via the Blogs, Bookmarks and Groups. 2. A Professional Membership Scheme. 3. Certificated e-learning short courses for skills in medical research. 4. Links to online learning.
Handbook on health inequality monitoring: with a special focus on low- and middle-income countries
World Health Organisation: 2013
The World Health Organisation developed this handbook to provide an overview for health inequality monitoring within low- and middle-income countries, and act as a resource for those involved in spearheading, improving or sustaining monitoring systems. The handbook was principally designed to be used by technical staff of ministries of health to build capacity for health inequality monitoring in World Health Organization Member States; however, it may also be of interest to public health professionals, researchers, students and others. Users of this handbook will be expected to have basic statistical knowledge and some familiarity with monitoring related issues. The handbook serves as a comprehensive resource to clarify the concepts associated with health inequality monitoring, illustrate the process through examples and promote the integration of health inequality monitoring within health information systems of low- and middle-income countries.
Responding to intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women: WHO clinical and policy guidelines
World Health Organisation: June 2013
These guidelines offer to equip healthcare providers with evidence-based guidance as to how to respond to intimate partner violence and sexual violence against women. They also provide advice for policy makers, encouraging better coordination and funding of services, and greater attention to responding to sexual violence and partner violence within training programmes for health care providers. The guidelines are based on systematic reviews of the evidence, and cover a range of topics: identification and clinical care for intimate partner violence; clinical care for sexual assault; training relating to intimate partner violence and sexual assault against women; policy and programmatic approaches to delivering services; and mandatory reporting of intimate partner violence. They aim to raise awareness of violence against women among health-care providers and policy-makers, so that they better understand the need for an appropriate health-sector response. The standards provided here can form the basis for national guidelines, and for integrating these issues into health-care provider education.
Health Equity Impact Assessment (HEIA) tool
Canadian Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care: 2012
Health Equity Impact Assessment (HEIA) tool has four key objectives: 1. Help identify unintended potential health equity impacts of decision-making (positive and negative) on specific population groups. 2. Support equity-based improvements in policy, planning, programme or service design. 3. Embed equity in an organisation’s decision-making processes. 4. Build capacity and raise awareness about health equity throughout the organisation. The HEIA tool includes a template and a workbook that provides users with step by step instructions on how to conduct an HEIA. The workbook walks users through five steps: scoping, potential impacts, mitigation, monitoring and dissemination. The results are recorded in the HEIA template. The tool may be used by organisations both inside and outside the health care system whose work can have an impact on health outcomes.
Resource for civil society organisations (CSOs): CSO Wiki
This is an interactive online platform and one-stop resource centre for civil society practitioners who want to work on improving the impact and quality of their development work. Whether you are starting to plan your work, or already have some tools and best practices to share, on this site you can access, share and rate tools, case studies and best practices from CSOs around the world, on implementing each of the eight Istanbul Principles and advocating for an enabling environment.