WHO Calls for Research to Improve Public Health

WHO calls for research to improve public health

GENEVA, Nov. 10 (Xinhua) — The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday called for a new and innovative approach to global health systems research to improve public health.

Effective research could prevent half of the world’s deaths with simple and cost-effective interventions, WHO said in a report launched here Wednesday.

The report, the “World Report on Knowledge for Better Health: Strengthening Health Systems,” sets out the strategies needed to reduce global disparities in health and to strengthen health systems.

Inequalities in health are among the major development challenges in the new millennium and malfunctioning health systems are at the heart of the problem, says the report.

Moreover, the culture and practice of health research should reach beyond academic institutions and laboratories to involve health service providers, policy-makers, the public and civil society, it says.

The report also argues that science must help to improve public health systems and should not be simply confined to producing drugs, diagnostics, vaccines and medical devices.

“There is a sense that science can do more, especially for public health,” WHO Director-General Lee Jong-wook said in a statement.

“There is a gap between today’s scientific advances and their application — between what we know and what is actually being done. Health systems are under severe pressure and there is an urgent need to generate knowledge for strengthening and improving them,” he said.

According to the WHO, health systems research, despite widespread recognition of its importance, suffers from a poor image and has been under-funded compared to biomedical research.

The field attracts less than 0.1 percent of total health expenditure in low-income countries and only 0.7 percent of scientific articles published globally in the year 2000 were in the area of health systems research, said the WHO.