The Union health ministry will soon finalise the National Health Research Policy that would facilitate the generation of evidence-base for health systems and services, so that they will be significant promoters of equity and contribute to national development to make health research a poverty reduction tool.
Senior officials in the union health ministry said that the Department of Health Research (DHR), which had drafted the policy around two years ago, has already sent the final document to the ministry for its final nod. The DHR finalised the document after incorporating several features based on the comments and suggestions received from experts and the public.
Earlier in April 2010, the DHR had released the draft National Health Research Policy and had invited comments, suggestions, criticisms from experts and others to improve the quality and contents of the draft policy which aims to establish linkages between health research and national health programs to identify key operational issues and facilitate the operationalisation of evidence based programmes and to obtain feedback for the optimisation of Health Research.
“The policy document has been given final shape based on public opinion and incorporated several comments and suggestions received from experts and public,” a senior official said.
The formulation of a National Health Research Policy is significant in view of the importance of health and the need for research to provide the evidence for the maintenance of health and for formulating rational health care policies.
The policy aims to foster translational research to ensure that the products of basic research can be appropriately utilized in health systems and services. It aims to encourage the development of fundamental research in areas relevant to health, such as physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, microbiology, pathology, molecular sciences and cell sciences, to ensure that a national critical mass of scientists who can contribute the benefits of modern technology to health research is developed. A critical mass of health researchers can only be built up by developing a research culture in the educational institutions. This would require strong links between medical colleges and research institutions and close supervision by the National Health Research System.
Besides, the policy aims to facilitate priority setting to guide the direction of health research and prepare rolling planning and strategy documents. Priority determination in health research is an on-going process and has to be done at regular intervals. Groups of experts would have to be convened in individual areas (example communicable diseases, non-communicable diseases, maternal and child health) and also multidisciplinary experts groups including social sciences, health economic etc. these groups would identify priorities linked to setting goals to be achieve in a time bound fashion.
The policy aims to build and integrate capacity for research in National Health Programmes, Research Institutions and in the Private sector (profit and non-profit organisations) especially in rural and urban research centres utilising as far as possible areas of excellence already available in the country. It aims to ensure that the global knowledge base is available for National programmes, and that research is channelled in relevant directions without unnecessary duplication by the optimal use of Information, Communication and Networking technology.
It further aims to manage global resources and transnational collaborations optimally to ensure that collaborative health research primarily facilitates the development of National Health Systems and Services. It aims to ensure true intersectorality of health research and harness the resources in areas such as Social Sciences, Economics and traditional systems of Medicine. It also aims for optimum harmonisation of national policies in a variety of areas (education, social sciences, population, agriculture, nutrition, trade, commerce, etc.) is essential to facilitate intersectoral collaboration and partnership, so that maximum developmental returns can occur from Health research.