engleski

Setting priorities for zinc-related health research to reduce children's disease burden worldwide: An application of the Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative's research priority-setting method

To make the best use of limited resources for supporting health-related research, it is necessary to apply a suitable method to rank competing research options. The Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI), an affiliated organization of the Global Forum of Health Research, has developed a new methodology for setting health research priorities. To broaden experience with this priority-setting technique, we applied the method to rank possible research priorities concerning the control of zinc deficiency. Although zinc deficiency is not generally recognized as a direct cause of child mortality, recent research indicates that zinc deficiency predisposes children to an increased incidence and severity of several of the major direct causes of morbidity and mortality. A group of leading experts in the field of zinc research in child health were identified and invited to participate in this priority-setting exercise. The individuals were chosen to represent a wide range of expertise in zinc nutrition: community nutrition, dietetics, clinical nutrition and paediatrics, maternal nutrition, infectious diseases, public health nutrition programs, health economics, global nutrition policy, and the food industry. The seven TWG members submitted a total of 90 research options, which were then consolidated into a final list of 31 research options categorized by the type of resulting intervention. The identified priorities were dominated by research investment options targeting zinc supplementation, and were followed by zinc fortification, research on general aspects of zinc nutrition, research on new interventions and research on dietary modification. In general, research options that aim to improve the efficiency of an already existing intervention strategy, received higher priority scores. Challenges identified during the implementation of the methodology and suggestions to modify the procedure are discussed.

zinc; research priority setting; children; CHNRI method

Rad je objavljen u elektronskoj verziji casopisa i nalazi se na PubMedu ; PMID: 18426636 ; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18426636?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum