What Is The Evidence On Policies Interventions And Toolsfor Establishing And Or Strengthening National Healthresearch Systems And Their Effectiveness

Policies and interventions to improve population health and well-being and to achievethe Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should be informed by high-qualityresearch evidence, including evidence derived from locally conducted researchwhere available and appropriate. Major challenges persist in strengthening thegeneration and use of research evidence. These include securing sufficient researchfunding, building adequate capacity, avoiding poorly targeted, low-quality researchproduction and underutilizing research findings. Developing or strengthening anational health research system (NHRS) has been proposed as a way of addressingthose challenges in order to improve health. Many countries, including in the WHOEuropean Region, do not have comprehensive national health research policies orstrategies in place that would facilitate the introduction of a systems approach.Countries often struggle both to increase the production of relevant research thatis used and to draw sufficiently on the global stock of evidence.

Based on careful analysis of burden of disease and the costs ofinterventions, this second edition of 'Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, 2nd edition' highlights achievable priorities; measures progresstoward providing efficient, equitable care; promotes cost-effectiveinterventions to targeted populations; and encourages integrated effortsto optimize health. Nearly 500 experts - scientists, epidemiologists, health economists,academicians, and public health practitioners - from around the worldcontributed to the data sources and methodologies, and identifiedchallenges and priorities, resulting in this integrated, comprehensivereference volume on the state of health in developing countries.

In the realm of health care, privacy protections are needed to preserve patients' dignity and prevent possible harms. Ten years ago, to address these concerns as well as set guidelines for ethical health research, Congress called for a set of federal standards now known as the HIPAA Privacy Rule. In its 2009 report, Beyond the HIPAA Privacy Rule: Enhancing Privacy, Improving Health Through Research, the Institute of Medicine's Committee on Health Research and the Privacy of Health Information concludes that the HIPAA Privacy Rule does not protect privacy as well as it should, and that it impedes important health research.

Interest in implementation research is growing, largely in recognition of the contribution it can make to maximizing the beneficial impact of health interventions. As a relatively new and, until recently, rather neglected field within the health sector, implementation research is something of an unknown quantity for many. There is therefore a need for greater clarity about what exactly implementation research is, and what it can offer. This Guide is designed to provide that clarity. Intended to support those conducting implementation research, those with responsibility for implementing programs, and those who have an interest in both, the Guide provides an introduction to basic implementation research concepts and language, briefly outlines what it involves, and describes the many opportunities that it presents. The main aim of the Guide is to boost implementation research capacity as well as demand for implementation research that is aligned with need, and that is of particular relevance to health systems in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Research on implementation requires the engagement of diverse stakeholders and multiple disciplines in order to address the complex implementation challenges they face. For this reason, the Guide is intended for a variety of actors who contribute to and/or are impacted by implementation research. This includes the decision-makers responsible for designing policies and managing programs whose decisions shape implementation and scale-up processes, as well as the practitioners and front-line workers who ultimately implement these decisions along with researchers from different disciplines who bring expertise in systematically collecting and analyzing information to inform implementation questions. The opening chapters (1-4) make the case for why implementation research is important to decision-making. They offer a workable definition of implementation research and illustrate the relevance of research to problems that are often considered to be simply administrative and provide examples of how such problems can be framed as implementation research questions. The early chapters also deal with the conduct of implementation research, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and discussing the role of implementers in the planning and designing of studies, the collection and analysis of data, as well as in the dissemination and use of results. The second half of the Guide (5-7) detail the various methods and study designs that can be used to carry out implementation research, and, using examples, illustrates the application of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method designs to answer complex questions related to implementation and scale-up. It offers guidance on conceptualizing an implementation research study from the identification of the problem, development of research questions, identification of implementation outcomes and variables, as well as the selection of the study design and methods while also addressing important questions of rigor.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD), once thought to be confined primarily to industrialized nations, has emerged as a major health threat in developing countries. Cardiovascular disease now accounts for nearly 30 percent of deaths in low and middle income countries each year, and is accompanied by significant economic repercussions. Yet most governments, global health institutions, and development agencies have largely overlooked CVD as they have invested in health in developing countries. Recognizing the gap between the compelling evidence of the global CVD burden and the investment needed to prevent and control CVD, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) turned to the IOM for advice on how to catalyze change. In this report, the IOM recommends that the NHLBI, development agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and governments work toward two essential goals: creating environments that promote heart healthy lifestyle choices and help reduce the risk of chronic diseases, and building public health infrastructure and health systems with the capacity to implement programs that will effectively detect and reduce risk and manage CVD. To meet these goals, the IOM recommends several steps, including improving cooperation and collaboration; implementing effective and feasible strategies; and informing efforts through research and health surveillance. Without better efforts to promote cardiovascular health, global health as a whole will be undermined.

This report analyses the skills and capacities governments need to strengthen evidence-informed policy-making (EIPM) and identifies a range of possible interventions that are available to foster greater uptake of evidence. Increasing governments' capacity for evidence-informed is a critical part of good public governance. However, an effective connection between the supply and the demand for evidence in the policy-making process remains elusive. This report offers concrete tools and a set of good practices for how the public sector can support senior officials, experts and advisors working at the political/administrative interface. This support entails investing in capability, opportunity and motivation and through behavioral changes. The report identifies a core skillset for EIPM at the individual level, including the capacity for understanding, obtaining, assessing, using, engaging with stakeholders, and applying evidence, which wasdeveloped in collaboration with the European Commission Joint Research Centre. It also identifies a set of capacities at the organisational level that can be put in place across the machinery of government, throughout the role of interventions, strategies and tools to strengthen these capacities. The report concludes with a set of recommendations to assist governments in building their capacities.

"IEA, International Epidemiological Association, Welcome Trust."

Makes the case for systems thinking in an easily accessible form for a broad interdisciplinary audience, including health system stewards, programme implementers, researchers, evaluators, and funding partners.