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Making Research Matter; Comment on “Public Spending on Health Service and Policy Research in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States: A Modest Proposal”

Lookup NU author(s): Emeritus Prof David Hunter

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Abstract

© 2018 The Author(s); Published by Kerman University of Medical Sciences. We offer a UK-based commentary on the recent “Perspective” published in IJHPM by Thakkar and Sullivan. We are sympathetic to the authors’ call for increased funding for health service and policy research (HSPR). However, we point out that increasing that investment – in any of the three countries they compare: Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom– will ipso facto not necessarily lead to any better use of research by health system decision-makers in these settings. We cite previous authors’ descriptions of the many factors that tend to make the worlds of researchers and decision-makers into “two solitudes.” And we call for changes in the structure and funding of HSPR, particularly the incentives now in place for purely academic publishing, to tackle a widespread reality: most published research in HSPR, as in other applied fields of science, is never read or used by the vast majority of decision-makers, working out in the “real world.”.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Hunter DJ, Frank J

Publication type: Note

Publication status: Published

Journal: International Journal of Health Policy and Management

Year: 2018

Volume: 7

Issue: 4

Pages: 353-355

Print publication date: 01/04/2018

Online publication date: 13/08/2017

Acceptance date: 05/08/2017

ISSN (print): 2322-5939

ISSN (electronic): 2322-5939

Publisher: Kerman University of Medical Sciences

URL: https://doi.org/10.15171/ijhpm.2017.97

DOI: 10.15171/ijhpm.2017.97

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