Health Research Systems Analysis (HRSA) Initiative
How is HRSA being carried out?
- Formation of national task forces with wide representation to steer politically & technically valid and relevant work
- National & cross-national inventory of existing data, tools, methods, policies & potential best practices
- Development and testing of concepts, new methods and indicators
- An extensive consultative process at all stages of the project, (RF, SIDA/Sarec)
Achievements of HRSA to date
- A conceptual framework for national health research from a systems' perspective with 4 main components:
- Stewardship
- Creating and sustaining human and physical or institutional resources
- Financing
- Producing and using research
- Synthesis of existing literature, case studies and reports on national health research systems (AHPSR, COHRED)
- Identification of 14 core indicators to facilitate cross-national sharing of experiences and 42 additional indicators for in-depth country analysis, for further input to benchmarking national health research systems
- Suite of qualitative & quantitative data collection and analysis tools , currently in pilot phase in middle- and low-income countries
- Identification of case themes for high-income country studies, such as the strategies and program models to promote innovation in research
- Pilot phase completed, to develop methods to understand barriers and facilitators in the use of existing research findings, particularly by policy makers and health practitioners, with the main phase to be launched in January 2004 (AHPSR, GDN, WT)
- Critical review of existing approaches to quantify research outputs, along with the development of an approach to estimate a broader range of research outcomes internationally
- Critical review of approaches to estimate financial flows for health research in national settings, and development of an innovative approach focusing on institutions conducting research on health topics (GF)
- Analytical and policy inputs to the WHO Report on Knowledge for Better Health, to be released in October 2004, and the Summit on Health Research, to be held in Mexico City, 16-20 November 2004