Linking research evidence to health policy and practice

Abstract

Evidence based policies in public health are receiving increasing attention and importance for organizing, funding
and delivering the health services. The world health organization’s, task force report on health system research
states, “millennium development goals will not be attained without new research addressing health system
constraints to delivering effective interventions” (World Health Organization, 2005), “research is an essential
component of strong health systems for informed and knowledgeable action to improve people©s health and
accelerate the rate of global, regional and national development” (The Ministerial Summit on Health Research, 2004),
evidence-based policy relies on the principle that policy decisions must involve comprehensive analysis of health
issues, testing of newer strategies or possible health interventions and mechanism to deliver those health
interventions. Health system would be better able to deal with existing challenges if interventions that adopted are
based on sound evidences. High quality research has an important part to play in strengthening these interventions
and subsequently health systems. Public health agencies should exercise its responsibilities in the development of
comprehensive public health policies by promoting the use of the scientific knowledge in decision-making about
public health and to serve the public interest. Currently, there is insufficient use of research evidence by decisionmakers attempting to improve health systems performances (World Health Organization, 2006; Thomsom et al.,
2007). With this background we look at the range of issues related to linking research evidence into health policy
and practice, especially in Indian context that can also be true for other low and middle income countries.