Push for research findings to be utilised — Sory

Saturday, October 2, 2010 (The Mirror Pg 27)

By Rebecca Kwei
THE Director General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Elias Sory, has called on researchers to channel their findings to the appropriate quarters for them to be utilised.
He said it was not enough for researchers to generate information but they needed to go a step further to push and convince policy makers to make good use of their research results.
Dr Sory made the call at the 10th Annual General Meeting of the Indepth Network in Accra.
The four day meeting which is on the theme “Indepth: Lessons for future direction in demographic and health research in developing countries” is being attended by 268 researchers and scientists from various countries.
The Indepth Network is a global network of members who conduct health and demographic evaluations of populations in low and middle income countries to enable them set health priorities and policies based on evidence.
The network currently has 42 Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSS) in 19 countries in Africa, Asia and Oceania.
During the AGM members will hold scientific forum and presentations to share their research based on HDSS.
Dr Sory noted that research was a very powerful tool and that “without research we would not have been where we are now”.
He said the service recognised the importance of research hence a new division had been created to bring research activities to the fore.
Additionally, he said the service had also allocated five per cent of its budget to support research activities.
He said fighting diseases of poverty was a complex issue and appealed to other ministries and sectors to also set aside money for research since it will go a long way to help the health delivery system in the country.
Corroborating the importance of research to national development, the Vice President, Mr John Mahama, in a speech read on his behalf by the Minister of Environment, Science and Technology, Ms Sherry Ayittey, also said health research had become a cornerstone of international development policy.
He, therefore, gave the assurance that government will collaborate with all health research centres and allied institutions to ensure that health delivery is brought to the door step of every Ghanaian.
The Vice President was pleased to note that three of Indepth’s member centres in Ghana namely the Navrongo, Kintampo and Dodowa Health Centres were institutions of the Ghana Health Service which were at the forefront of conducting first class health and demographic research aimed at informing health policy in the country.
He particularly made mention of research conducted at these centres that have now been adopted as national policy such as the Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS), Insecticide Treated Nets (ITNs) and Vitamin A supplementation.
For his part, the board chair of the Indepth Network, Dr Seth Owusu-Agyei, said the research on public health conducted by the network aimed at informing policy and decision makers of all interventions that would influence the health needs of Ghanaians.
He said research activities of member sites stool tall globally and “an indication that collectively scientists of the global south can and indeed are making significant contributions to the development of scientific and demographic research world-wide”.
The Executive Director of Indepth Network, Dr Osman Sankoh, stressed the need for local scientists to be strengthened and play lead roles in research activities.