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What is health research?

Health research activities go far beyond the well-known areas of developing new medicines, treatments and technologies. Research also produces timely and accurate information about a country’s state of health – births, deaths, causes of ill health, and obstacles to improving people’s health.

This also covers strategic information such as the performance of a country’s health services and interventions in the health sector.

This information and evidence is vital for policy makers to make decisions, design strategies and make the right investments.

It is the national health research system that produces this evidence and makes it easily available. To do this effectively, countries require a strong governance structure, a policy framework, and clear and measurable priorities.

A vital measure of the performance of health and health research is its equity – the extent to which it benefits all people in society. 

Benefits of health research

Health research is necessary for countries to achieve better health, equity and development. COHRED’s business is to enable countries to set and meet health research objectives, especially those aimed at improving equity in health.

Health research makes a real difference to people’s lives. Through health research, countries can:

• Improve their health systems using existing resources and knowledge
• Make effective, but expensive and complex health interventions simpler and more affordable
• Identify and measure inequity in health and monitor progress towards its elimination
• Provide evidence to set priorities for equity in health and to inform policies
• Focus resources on national health priorities
• Identify unnecessary duplication and ineffective actions
• Improve the understanding of, and address, people’s health needs
• Discover new ways to prevent and treat challenging diseases

From Health Research to ‘Research for Health’

In 2001 the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, which laid the basis for the MDGs, called for major investments in research to underpin the health sector transformation which was needed in order to bring about change.

It considered ‘research for health’ an essential step to identifying health problems and finding solutions at both global and national levels.

The paradigm shift to research for health was adopted at the Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health (Bamako 2008).

Research for health takes a broader view than health research. It includes sectors beyond health (such as agriculture, housing and environment) that have a direct impact on the health of populations.

To ensure an effective move towards research for health, the involvement of stakeholders from various sectors and discisplines – including civil society organisations – is needed.

Creating an environment for low and middle income countries to use ‘research for health’ is one, very important, way to achieve development goals. This will increase the likelihood of achieving sustainable improvements in the health of the population, in the health system, and in the domains of science, technology and innovation.

Research for health supports development 

Why invest in research for health? Choosing research as a path to development

The path towards realising development goals needs to begin with research. And in the area of health research in low and middle income countries, this means strengthening the institutions and systems that deliver research.

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the 'rallying point' around which global aid for health is mobilised. However, it is evident that many of these goals will not be achieved. Part of the problem is that because of the difference in capacity between rich and poor nations, almost all MDG related research is funded and carried out by the 'north'.

Southern countries are not sufficiently involved

The 'south' is not sufficiently involved in defining the core questions that need to be answered to solve problems of poverty and development in the developing world. Developing countries also lack the capability to participate in finding solutions to these problems.

Yet the ability to use research can lead to solutions that directly benefit the poor. Research related to equity, including epidemiology, has been central to achieving better health and equity in developed countries. It was not just research on medicines and technologies, but also research on health systems that lead to the health standards of the 'north'. This is often forgotten in the search for solutions to health problems in the 'south'.

Because the 'south' does not adequately participate in the research process, it also loses out on the indirect benefits that flow from research. These include the ability to retain scientists and to develop scientific and technological expertise. Research also leads to a culture of evidence-based policy, which in turn encourages the practice of holding health care providers to account. It also enables countries to demand that the funding of donors and global organisations be in line with their national development needs.

Putting southern countries in the driver's seat

The way ahead needs to start with increasing the ability of low and middle income countries to define priority health problems that can benefit from research and to follow this up with either conducting their own research, or finding research partners. They need to increase their presence in the global competition for research resources and their influence in setting agendas for health research for development.

The next step is to improve governance and management of research for health. This includes setting health research policies, strategies for developing human resources, a regulatory infrastructure which includes ethics, and financing strategies.

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COHRED has developed an approach to strengthening national health research systems. The approach is based on more than 15 years' work with low and middle income countries. The approaches and processes behind this framework are based on partnership and equal participation.