The Union has received £1 million from UK’s Department of International Development (DFID) over three years (2011–2014) to support the expansion of its capacity-building operational research programme.
The OR training, developed by The Union and Médecins Sans Frontières, addresses the need for low- and middle-income countries to develop the expertise to research practices and policies that address the public health challenges they face. The Union’s programmes provide targeted training and mentoring that build these capacities in front-line health practitioners.
DFID praised The Union’s rigorous approach to this training, which involves a tough selection process, ambitious milestones and the ability to produce a peer-reviewed paper as a final outcome.
Through the DFID grant, 107 participants have enrolled in training. The 76 who have completed the course have written 77 research articles have been submitted to peer-reviewed journals and 61 have been published to date. Policy briefs, opinion and viewpoint articles have also been developed as a result of the courses.
In addition, participants have gone on to deliver 25 OR courses for their home organisations or countries.
Examples of the impact of their training and research include:
- Two participants established the Centre for Operational Research in Delhi, which has produced over 100 papers and has become an influential voice in TB control.
- Malawi has been replacing its paper-based records for monitoring patients on antiretroviral treatment (ART) with an electronic system, and the latter is now used to monitor 250,000 patients on ART.
- In India, national policy regarding when to initiate ART was changed as a result of a participant’s research, which showed that all HIV-TB patients should be on ART irrespective of their CD4 blood count.
According to DFID, these results demonstrate that the project has been able to improve health programme performance and health service delivery that has directly improved the health of people in lower- and middle-income countries.
Learn more about upcoming OR courses