Pushing the international health research agenda towards equity and effectiveness

Child Health Research in Contrasting Economies: Gender Recognition and Publishing Portraits

“…First, one interpretation is that the uneven global research infrastructure including funding sources, competitive pressures, research environments, and accessibility of journals was once again demonstrated (Costello & Osrin, 2005;McCoy, Mwansambo, Costello, & Khan, 2008). Second, the findings support the scientific premises previously reported regarding the "10/90" knowledge gap in global health research in general (Lawn, Costello, Mwansambo, Osrin, 2007;McCoy et al 2004;Östlin et al, 2004;World Health Organization, 2006).…”

“…This study is based on previously published results concerning geographical discrepancies in health and social sciences (Godlee, Pakenham-Walsh, Ncayiyana, Cohen, & Packer, 2004;McCoy, Sanders, Baum, Narayan, & Legge, 2004;Momen, 2004). There are certainly many possible reasons for a divergent situation in published research-a skewed global research infrastructure, the priorities of the journals themselves, an imbalance in the publishing languages, or simply the research priorities in different economies-but the extent to which each cause contributes to observed patterns is not fully known (Bar-Ilan, 2008).…”

Participatory action research

“…The global research community is already being urged to adapt its grant assessment methods and its assessment of research performance to ensure that the engaged processes typical of PAR are valued and encouraged. 30 PAR also requires health researchers to work in close partnership with civil society and health policy makers and practitioners. This requires each of these players to learn methods of working together effectively and to manage the different and sometimes competing agendas of the partners.…”

From the Editor-In-Chief

“…It requires that funding bodies, including national health, medical, and social research councils, invest more in research on the social determinants of health and in the multi-and interdisciplinary research that this entails, rather than the disease-specific biomedical focus of research funding that currently prevails (Global Forum for Health Research, 2006;Sanders et al, 2004;McCoy et al, 2004). …”