Ellen McIntyre, PHC RIS
In an era where the primary health care (PHC) research dollar seems harder to get, every piece of research that is planned needs to be valued more. One way to assist with this is to identify and address the gaps in what is known and what research users need to know. Determining the priorities of research users can also result in research that is likely to be used.
Systematic reviews (where they exist) are an obvious source of synthesised evidence of what is known and in some cases, what is not known. But how much confidence do you place in them? How do you assess the applicability of their findings? How do you take equity into consideration when assessing the findings?
When implementing research findings into policy and/or practice, other issues that need to be considered include local conditions, resources and costs – hence more research is required if these are not known.
These issues and more are covered in the recent publication series on SUPPORT Tools for evidence-informed health Policymaking. See our ReportWatch on p14 for more details.
Setting research priorities can be challenging. What timelines should these have? What processes and criteria should be used to determine priorities? How can this be done in a systematic, ongoing and efficient manner? How do you align them with the current health reform such that they are also recognised and used by research fund holders such as The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), The Australian Research Council (ARC) and other such organisations?
A big ask, especially given that PHC research has received very little funding over recent years. Only 0.6% of the total NHMRC funding during 2000-2009 was allocated to PHC research.
PHC research needs to grow substantially to improve health care in Australia. Let’s hope more funding will be allocated for PHC researchers to do this.
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