A systematic review of existing national priorities for child health research in sub-Saharan Africa
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A systematic review of existing national priorities for child health research in sub-Saharan Africa George H Swingler*1, James H Irlam1,2, William M Macharia3, Félix Tietche4 and Martin M Meremikwu5 Address: 1School of Child and Adolescent Health, University of Cape Town, South Africa, 2Directorate of Primary Health Care, University of Cape Town, South Africa, 3Department of Paediatrics and Child Health, University of Nairobi, Kenya, 4Department of Paediatrics, Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Yaoundé, Cameroon and 5Department of Paediatrics, University of Calabar, Nigeria Email: George H Swingler* - [email protected]; James H Irlam - [email protected]; William M Macharia - [email protected]; Félix Tietche - [email protected]; Martin M Meremikwu - [email protected] * Corresponding author
Published: 21 November 2005 Health Research Policy and Systems 2005, 3:7
doi:10.1186/1478-4505-3-7
Received: 22 June 2005 Accepted: 21 November 2005
This article is available from: http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/3/1/7 © 2005 Swingler et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract Background: We systematically reviewed existing national child health research priorities in SubSaharan Africa, and the processes used to determine them. Methods: Collaborators from a purposive sample of 20 WHO-AFRO Region countries, assisted by key informants from a range of governmental, non-governmental, research and funding organisations and universities, identified and located potentially eligible prioritisation documents. Included documents were those published between 1990 and 2002 from national or nationally accredited institutions describing national health research priorities for child health, alone or as part of a broader report in which children were a clearly identifiable group. Laboratory, clinical, public health and policy research were included. Two reviewers independently assessed eligibility for inclusion and extracted data. Results: Eight of 33 potentially eligible reports were included. Five reports focused on limited areas of child health. The remaining three included child-specific categories in reports of general research priorities, with two such child-specific categories limited to reproductive health. In a secondary analysis of Essential National Health Research reports that included children, though not necessarily as an identifiable group, the reporting of priorities varied markedly in format and numbers of priorities listed, despite a standard recommended approach. Comparison and synthesis of reported priorities was not possible. Conclusion: Few systematically developed national research priorities for child health exist in subSaharan Africa. Children's interests may be dist
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