scholarly journals OC 8360 GLOBAL HEALTH RESEARCH AND ITS ROLE IN IMPROVING HEALTH AND HEALTH EQUITY IN AFRICA

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (Suppl 3) ◽  
pp. A3.3-A4
Author(s):  
Nchangwi Syntia Munung ◽  
Jantina De Vries ◽  
Bridget F Pratt
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Health Equity ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
High Income ◽  
Global Health Research ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Research Partnerships ◽  
Capacity Strengthening ◽  
Improve Health

BackgroundHealth research has the potential to generate knowledge that may be used to improve health and health equity. This has led to calls for African governments to dedicate at least 2% of their national budgets to heath research, but such resource allocations have never been achieved. Rather, most of health research in Africa continues to be funded by high-income countries (HICs) and involves collaborative partnerships between researchers in high-income countries and those in Africa. These research partnerships have many benefits, but they also raise ethical issues related to justice and fairness in global health research.MethodsThe ‘Research for Health Justice Framework’ makes recommendations on how global health research partnerships may foster the ideals of justice through their selection of research populations and questions, research capacity strengthening, delivery of ancillary care and the provision of post-trial benefits. We applied these criteria to collaborative genomics research consortia in Africa (an example of global health research in Africa).ResultsThe results show that the lack of national health research priorities in most African countries hinders the intention of global health actors to use global health research as a means of promoting global health equity. Furthermore, capacity building efforts need to be more coordinated and monitored. The responsibility for this lies with several actors.ConclusionThe potential for global health research to improve the health capability of countries in Africa will require that attention is paid to research that improves the health of people in Africa and that global health research partnerships identify, first and foremost, what kind of capacity strengthening is required and who is responsible for this activity. African governments and research institutions can play a role to help global health research improve health and health equity in Africa, in ways that are sustainable.

scholarly journals Stuck in the middle: a systematic review of authorship in collaborative health research in Africa, 2014–2016

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. e001853 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bethany L Hedt-Gauthier ◽  
Herve Momo Jeufack ◽  
Nicholas H Neufeld ◽  
Atalay Alem ◽  
Sara Sauer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Health Research ◽  
African Country ◽  
High Income ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Income Country ◽  
High Income Country ◽  
Sensitivity Analyses ◽  
Global Health Research ◽  
The Usa

BackgroundCollaborations are often a cornerstone of global health research. Power dynamics can shape if and how local researchers are included in manuscripts. This article investigates how international collaborations affect the representation of local authors, overall and in first and last author positions, in African health research.MethodsWe extracted papers on ‘health’ in sub-Saharan Africa indexed in PubMed and published between 2014 and 2016. The author’s affiliation was used to classify the individual as from the country of the paper’s focus, from another African country, from Europe, from the USA/Canada or from another locale. Authors classified as from the USA/Canada were further subclassified if the author was from a top US university. In primary analyses, individuals with multiple affiliations were presumed to be from a high-income country if they contained any affiliation from a high-income country. In sensitivity analyses, these individuals were presumed to be from an African country if they contained any affiliation an African country. Differences in paper characteristics and representation of local coauthors are compared by collaborative type using χ² tests.ResultsOf the 7100 articles identified, 68.3% included collaborators from the USA, Canada, Europe and/or another African country. 54.0% of all 43 429 authors and 52.9% of 7100 first authors were from the country of the paper’s focus. Representation dropped if any collaborators were from USA, Canada or Europe with the lowest representation for collaborators from top US universities—for these papers, 41.3% of all authors and 23.0% of first authors were from country of paper’s focus. Local representation was highest with collaborators from another African country. 13.5% of all papers had no local coauthors.DiscussionIndividuals, institutions and funders from high-income countries should challenge persistent power differentials in global health research. South-South collaborations can help African researchers expand technical expertise while maintaining presence on the resulting research.

scholarly journals Practical actions for fostering cross-disciplinary global health research: lessons from a narrative literature review

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. e002293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Ding ◽  
Justin Pulford ◽  
Imelda Bates
Keyword(s):  
Global Health ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Research Team ◽  
Ecological Model ◽  
High Income ◽  
Global Health Research ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Design And Implementation

IntroductionGlobal health research involves disciplines within and beyond the health sciences. A cross-disciplinary collaborative research approach enables an interchange of knowledge and experience and stimulates innovative responses to complex health challenges. However, there is little robust evidence to guide the design and implementation of cross-disciplinary research in global health, hampering effective collective action. This review synthesised evidence on practical actions for fostering cross-disciplinary research to provide guidance on the design and implementation of research in global health.MethodsWe searched five electronic databases using key words. The search included original research and research notes articles in English. We used a framework adapted from the socio-ecological model and thematic synthesis for data analysis.ResultsThirty-six original research and 27 research notes articles were included in the review. These were predominantly from high-income countries and indicated that practical actions on fostering cross-disciplinary research are closely linked to leadership and teamwork which should be planned and implemented at research team and institutional levels. The publications also indicated that individual qualities such as being receptive to new ideas and funders’ power and influence have practical implications for conducting cross-disciplinary research. Practical actions that individuals, research team leaders, academic institutions and funders can undertake to foster cross-disciplinary research were identified.ConclusionOur review found evidence from high-income countries, not low-and-middle-income countries, about practices that can improve cross-disciplinary research in global health. Critical knowledge gaps exist around how leadership and teamwork processes can better integrate expertise from different disciplines to make cross-disciplinary research more effective.

scholarly journals Global health research partnerships in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. 1614-1618 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joyce Addo-Atuah ◽  
Batoul Senhaji-Tomza ◽  
Dipan Ray ◽  
Paramita Basu ◽  
Feng-Hua (Ellen) Loh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Global Health Research ◽  
Research Partnerships ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Development Goals

scholarly journals Systematic analysis of global health research funding in Canada, 2000–2016

2019 ◽  
Vol 111 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven J. Hoffman ◽  
Elliot Gunn ◽  
Susan Rogers Van Katwyk ◽  
Stephanie Nixon
Keyword(s):  
Infectious Disease ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Health Equity ◽  
Administrative Data ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Research Funding ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Global Health Research ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Principal Investigators

Abstract Objectives Considering recent shifts in global funding landscapes, this study analyzes Canada’s long-term global health research funding trends in the hope of informing a new Canadian global health research strategy. Examining past investments can help prioritize limited future resources to either build on Canada’s existing strengths or fill gaps where needed, while simultaneously informing the investments of research funders in other countries. Methods Administrative data were analyzed covering all 1584 global health research grants awarded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to 927 unique principal investigators from 2000 to 2016, totalling C$341 million. Existing metadata associated with each grant was supplemented by additional qualitative coding. Descriptive time-series analyses of global health research grant data were conducted using various measures related to each grant’s recipient (e.g., province, university, sex, distribution) and subject matter (e.g., research theme, area, focus). Results CIHR’s total annual global health research funding increased sharply from $3.6 million in FY2000/2001 to $30.3 million in FY2015/2016, with the largest share of research funding now focused on health equity—representing nearly 50% of CIHR’s global health research funding. Past grants have concentrated on infectious disease and public health research. One third of CIHR’s global health grant funding went to 20 principal investigators. Only 42.2% of global health research funding came from CIHR’s open investigator-driven competitions, with the rest coming from strategic priority-driven competitions. Conclusion Global health research has seen steady increases in funding from CIHR’s open competitions when preceded by investment in strategic competitions, which suggests the level of a national research funding agency’s strategic investments in global health research may determine the size of the field in their country. The greatest concentration of past investment lies in health equity research, followed by infectious disease research. Future analyses of research funding would benefit from an internationally accepted keyword classification scheme and more granular administrative data.

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