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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Health research in India poor: Lancet study by Aarti Dhar

Health research in India poor: Lancet study by Aarti Dhar

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published Published on Apr 4, 2011   modified Modified on Apr 4, 2011

“National organisations of health research should come together to provide effective stewardship”

Proportion of published papers increased from 0·4 % in 1988 to 1·8 % in 2008

Only 1/4 public health research reports rated as being of adequate quality

Expressing concern over the scarcity of research on the routine health-information system in both reports and published papers, which is crucial to track the response of the health system to the health needs of the population, a paper on “Research to achieve health care for all in India” published in the latest edition of The Lancet medical journal has suggested that major national organisations of health research in India come together to provide effective stewardship.

Co-authored, among others, by Vishwa Mohan Katoch, Director-General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the paper suggests that these organisations collaboratively develop mechanisms that enable agreement on tangible mid-term and long-term targets for health research in the country, create a plan of action and methods to track the progress in research utilisation to achieve health care for all. Although solutions for India will have to be tailored to its circumstances, there are useful lessons to be learnt from the systematic efforts of other countries aimed at matching research with public health priorities to more effectively improve population health, says the paper written by Lalit Dandona and Rakhi Dandona along with Dr. Katoch.

Quoting PubMed — United States National Library of Medicine — the paper says that the proportion of published papers from India increased from 0·4 per cent of the global total in 1988 to 1·8 per cent in 2008, but the proportion of public health research continues to be small, at 5 per cent of the total health research published.

Additionally, many of the leading causes of disease burden across communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases, and injuries continue to be under-represented in this published research, indicating that even among the limited papers on public health research, public health priority conditions in India are not adequately addressed.

An analysis of public health research reports produced in India also showed that the leading chronic non-communicable diseases and injuries were under-represented between 2001 and 2008. Health system research was more evident in public health research reports than in published public health papers. Only one in four public health research reports were rated as being of adequate quality. The quality was higher for reports produced by collaborations between Indian and international organisations, indicating that there is merit in promoting such collaborations for more useful research output

The paper suggests that a national research-tracking mechanism be developed to guide funding and commissioning of high-quality research. It calls for creation of a systematic plan to integrate research initiatives with policies and implementation of health programmes, so that research is more relevant for the health system and policy, and the knowledge generated is used more often by policy makers. It also suggests that rigorous evaluation research be made an essential component of all major population health programmes and policies to understand how these could be refined to improve health outcomes and how the underserved segments of the Indian population could be better reached to improve health equity

The ICMR has been the nodal organisation for health research in India since 1949. To widen coordination between health research and various sectors, the Department of Health Research was established under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. This department aims to: encourage innovation related to diagnostics, treatment methods, and prevention; translate innovations into products or processes by facilitating their evaluation; and introduce innovation through health-systems research.

Although a full analysis of all present funding for health research in India and what it is spent on is not available, the funding from both domestic and international sources has increased substantially in India over the past decade.

The Hindu, 4 April, 2011, http://www.hindu.com/2011/04/04/stories/2011040457541400.htm


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