In this week's PLoS Medicine, Igor Rudan of the University of Edinburgh, UK and colleagues report the results of their consensus building exercise that identified health research priorities to help reduce global child mortality from pneumonia. In a process co-ordinated by the WHO, the authors applied the Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative methodology for setting priorities in health research investments. The research priorities identified were dominated by health systems and policy research topics, such as studying barriers to health care seeking and access.
The authors say: "The context for this exercise was set within MDG4 [Millennium Development Goal 4], requiring an urgent and rapid progress in mortality reduction from childhood pneumonia, rather than identifying long-term strategic solutions of the greatest potential…In a short-term context, the health policy and systems research to improve access and coverage by the existing interventions and epidemiological research to address the key gaps in knowledge were highlighted as research priorities."
Funding: The first author (IR) has received support as a consultant of the Child Health Research and Nutrition Initiative (CHNRI) of Global Forum for Health Research for development and implementation of CHNRI methodology. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interests: ZAB is a member of the PLoS Medicine Editorial Board. SAQ is employed by the World Health Organization and undertook this research priority exercise on behalf of the Department of Child and Adolescent Health and Development, WHO. All other authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Citation: Rudan I, El Arifeen S, Bhutta ZA, Black RE, Brooks A, et al. (2011) Setting Research Priorities to Reduce Global Mortality from Childhood Pneumonia by 2015. PLoS Med 8(9): e1001099. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001099
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