Contribution mapping: a method for mapping the contribution of research to enhance its impact.

Background: At a time of growing emphasis on both the use of research and accountability, it is important for research funders, researchers and other stakeholders to monitor and evaluate the extent to which research contributes to better action for health, and find ways to enhance the likelihood that beneficial contributions are realized. Past attempts to assess research 'impact' struggle with operationalizing 'impact', identifying the users of research and attributing impact to research projects as source. In this article we describe Contribution Mapping, a novel approach to research monitoring and evaluation that aims to assess contributions instead of impacts. The approach focuses on processes and actors and systematically assesses anticipatory efforts that aim to enhance contributions, so-called alignment efforts. The approach is designed to be useful for both accountability purposes and for assisting in better employing research to contribute to better action for health.Methods: Contribution Mapping is inspired by a perspective from social studies of science on how research and knowledge utilization processes evolve. For each research project that is assessed, a three-phase process map is developed that includes the main actors, activities and alignment efforts during research formulation, production and knowledge extension (e.g. dissemination and utilization). The approach focuses on the actors involved in, or interacting with, a research project (the linked actors) and the most likely influential users, who are referred to as potential key users. In the first stage, the investigators of the assessed project are interviewed to develop a preliminary version of the process map and first estimation of research-related contributions. In the second stage, potential key-users and other informants are interviewed to trace, explore and triangulate possible contributions. In the third stage, the presence and role of alignment efforts is analyzed and the preliminary results are shared with relevant stakeholders for feedback and validation. After inconsistencies are clarified or described, the results are shared with stakeholders for learning, improvement and accountability purposes.Conclusion: Contribution Mapping provides an interesting alternative to existing methods that aim to assess research impact. The method is expected to be useful for research monitoring, single case studies, comparing multiple cases and indicating how research can better be employed to contribute to better action for health. © 2012 Kok and Schuit; licensee BioMed Central Ltd

Surviving Sepsis Campaign: International guidelines for management of severe sepsis and septic shock: 2008

SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

How to strengthen a health research system: WHO's review, whose literature and who is providing leadership?

Background Health research is important for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. However, there are many challenges facing health research, including securing sufficient funds, building capacity, producing research findings and using both local and global evidence, and avoiding waste. A WHO initiative addressed these challenges by developing a conceptual framework with four functions to guide the development of national health research systems. Despite some progress, more is needed before health research systems can meet their full potential of improving health systems. The WHO Regional Office for Europe commissioned an evidence synthesis of the systems-level literature. This Opinion piece considers its findings before reflecting on the vast additional literature available on the range of specific health research system functions related to the various challenges. Finally, it considers who should lead research system strengthening. Main text The evidence synthesis identifies two main approaches for strengthening national health research systems, namely implementing comprehensive and coherent strategies and participation in partnerships. The literature describing these approaches at the systems level also provides data on ways to strengthen each of the four functions of governance, securing financing, capacity-building, and production and use of research. Countries effectively implementing strategies include England, Ireland and Rwanda, whereas West Africa experienced effective partnerships. Recommended policy approaches for system strengthening are context specific. The vast literature on each function and the ever-growing evidence-base are illustrated by considering papers in just one key journal, Health Research Policy and Systems, and analysing the contribution of two national studies. A review of the functions of the Iranian system identifies over 200 relevant and mostly national records; an analysis of the creation of the English National Institute for Health Research describes the key leadership role played by the health department. Furthermore, WHO is playing leadership roles in helping coordinate partnerships within and across health research systems that have been attempting to tackle the COVID-19 crisis. Conclusions The evidence synthesis provides a firm basis for decision-making by policy-makers and research leaders looking to strengthen national health research systems within their own national context. It identifies five crucial policy approaches — conducting situation analysis, sustaining a comprehensive strategy, engaging stakeholders, evaluating impacts on health systems, and partnership participation. The vast and ever-growing additional literature could provide further perspectives, including on crucial leadership roles for health ministries.Health Evidence Network Evidence Synthesis; NIH

Improving WASH in Pacific Island schools by embracing local epistemologies

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aim for universal water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) by 2030. It is widely accepted within the sector that we have already picked the “low hanging fruit”, and that as we get nearer to universal coverage it will become more and more difficult for remaining communities to attain safely managed WASH. To inform the programming of Adventist Development and Relief Agency’s (ADRA’s) programmes to bridge this gap in WASH infrastructure, education and behaviours, we were commissioned to prepare a synthesis of the literature relating to improving WASH in schools for girl students and students with disabilities in Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs). The review of the literature highlighted a lack of published information on relevant interventions or practices in PICTs, despite the availability of information on WASH in schools globally. However, this is not indicative of a lack of knowledge within the PICTs context. The literature that is available highlights the importance of student-centred or student-led approaches to improving WASH, suggesting that the contextualisation of programs to local socio-cultural conditions is key to success. Based on the authors’ experiences of participatory action research and indigenist research approaches, we suggest how local knowledge and practices can be incorporated into processes for learning from, and improving WASH for, girl students and students with disabilities. Such a methodology would benefit from giving primacy to local epistemologies, while being informed by published literature as a source of useful information

Measuring resilience and risk factors for the psychosocial well-being of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander boarding school students: Pilot baseline study results

Mccalman, JR ORCiD: 0000-0002-3022-3980; Redman-Maclaren, ML ORCiD: 0000-0002-2055-7733Introduction: Education provides a key pathway to economic opportunities, health, and well-being. Yet, limited or no locally available secondary schooling in remote Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities requires more than 500 Indigenous students to transition to boarding schools. We report baseline quantitative data from the pilot phase (2016) of a 5-year study to explore a multicomponent mentoring approach to increase resilience and well-being for these students.Associated Grant Code:107677

Thinking with theory as a policy evaluation tool: The case of boarding schools for remote First Nations students

Many recent policy documents have outlined the challenges of delivering high-quality education in remote First Nations communities and proposed that boarding schools are one important solution. These documents have influenced the increasing uptake of boarding options and there has been considerable public investment in scholarships, residential facilities and transition support. Yet the outcomes of this investment and policy effort are not well understood. The authors of this article came together as a collaboration of researchers who have published about boarding school education for First Nations students to examine the evidence and develop a theory-driven understanding of how policies drive systems to produce both desirable and undesirable outcomes for First Nations boarding school students. We applied complexity theory and post-structural policy analysis techniques and produced a useful tool for the evaluation of boarding policy and its implementation

Male circumcision for HIV prevention in Papua New Guinea: A summary of research evidence and recommendations for public health following a National Policy Forum

Redman-Maclaren, ML ORCiD: 0000-0002-2055-7733In 2005, a clinical trial in South Africa found that circumcision of young men could reduce their risk of acquiring HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) infection by over 60%. In the following year, two more trials in Africa confirmed this finding, leading the World Health Organization to recommend male circumcision as a public health strategy for HIV prevention in high-incidence countries. In order to inform public health policy in Papua New Guinea (PNG), two major research projects were initiated with the goals of investigating the status of penile cutting practices and assessing understandings, acceptability, feasibility and cost-effectiveness of male circumcision for HIV prevention. In addition, behavioural surveillance surveys systematically asked questions on penile cutting practices and an ethnographic literature review informed historical perspectives of penile cutting in PNG. Key findings from these research activities were presented at a National Policy Forum on Male Circumcision for HIV Prevention held in Port Moresby in November 2011. The Forum made three key recommendations: (1) the formation of a joint National Department of HealthlNational AIDS Council Secretariat Policy Committee on male circumcision; (2) the establishment of an integrated harm reduction program; and (3) that future policy on wide-scale roll-out of male circumcision for HIV prevention in PNG be informed by a combination of data from (a) male circumcision intervention pilot programs and (b) research on the potential protective effect of other forms of penile cutting