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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Ritu Sadana, MSPH, SD¹, Shook-Pui Lee-Martin, DES, MSc¹, and Jennifer Lee, MPH². (1) Office of the Assistant Director General / Evidence for Information and Policy Cluster, World Health Organization, 20, Avenue Appia, Geneva, Switzerland, (2) Department of Community Health Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, School of Public Health, 10833 Le Conte Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90095, 3107942212, jlee118@ucla.edu

Strengthening health research capacity and health research systems in developing countries is essential to improving health outcomes of individuals living in these countries. Under the Health Research Systems Analysis (HRSA) initiative, the World Health Organization (WHO) worked with a range of partners in 13 low and middle income countries to develop concepts, tools and benchmarks to describe and analyze the processes involved in the production, management, and utilization of health research; provide leadership and advocacy on the need for a systems perspective on health research; and evaluate investments in health research. A collective benchmarking effort was employed to develop a toolkit to measure health research systems, which includes: (1) an individual survey targeted to researchers, policy makers and others involved in health research production or use, (2) a survey of institutions conducting research on health topics, (3) focus group discussion guides modified to specific topics of interest to each participating national team, and (4) a review of newspaper content on health and health research topics. The tools enable measurement and discussion of core quantitative indicators and descriptive variables identified through discussion with the initiative's network. Highlights from the tools will be presented. The main policy implications and specific strategies will be discussed in relation to approaches to enhance a country's capacity to monitor and evaluate health research in a sustainable way and to increase the relevance of health research given health and health system challenges.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to

• Evaluate the importance of strengthening health research capacity;
• Understand what is meant by a systems approach and collective benchmarking; and
• Identify approaches to enhance countries’ capacity to monitor and evaluate health research.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No