Building health research systems to achieve better health
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Open Access
Editorial
Building health research systems to achieve better health Stephen R Hanney*1 and Miguel A González Block2 Address: 1Health Economics Research Group, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK and 2Center for Health Systems Research, National Institute of Public Health, Av. Universidad 655 Col. Santa Maria Ahuacatitlán, Cuernavaca, 62508 Morelos, Mexico Email: Stephen R Hanney* - [email protected]; Miguel A González Block - [email protected] * Corresponding author
Published: 06 November 2006 Health Research Policy and Systems 2006, 4:10
doi:10.1186/1478-4505-4-10
Received: 28 September 2006 Accepted: 06 November 2006
This article is available from: http://www.health-policy-systems.com/content/4/1/10 © 2006 Hanney and González Block; 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 Health research systems can link knowledge generation with practical concerns to improve health and health equity. Interest in health research, and in how health research systems should best be organised, is moving up the agenda of bodies such as the World Health Organisation. Pioneering health research systems, for example those in Canada and the UK, show that progress is possible. However, radical steps are required to achieve this. Such steps should be based on evidence not anecdotes. Health Research Policy and Systems (HARPS) provides a vehicle for the publication of research, and informed opinion, on a range of topics related to the organisation of health research systems and the enormous benefits that can be achieved. Following the Mexico ministerial summit on health research, WHO has been identifying ways in which it could itself improve the use of research evidence. The results from this activity are soon to be published as a series of articles in HARPS. This editorial provides an account of some of these recent key developments in health research systems but places them in the context of a distinguished tradition of debate about the role of science in society. It also identifies some of the main issues on which 'research on health research' has already been conducted and published, in some cases in HARPS. Finding and retaining adequate financial and human resources to conduct health research is a major problem, especially in low and middle income countries where the need is often greatest. Research ethics and agenda-setting that responds to the demands of the public are issues of growing concern. Innovative and collaborative ways are being found to organise the conduct and utilisation of research so as to inform policy, and improve health and health equity. This is crucial, not least to achieve the health-related Millennium Development Goals. But much more progress is needed. The editorial ends by listing a wide ran
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