July 7, 2020
NewsAccess the online survey to score 93 research questions. Your responses will be used to calculate a quantitative score resulting in a ranked list of research priorities for the final Cholera Roadmap Research Agenda. Download the background document to further assist you in scoring the research questions.
Download the Background document
In collaboration with the GTFCC, Wellcome and MM Global Health (MMGH) are developing a prioritized Research Agenda aligned with the Ending Cholera Roadmap.
Deciding how to use the limited time, energy and resources effectively is a major challenge for everyone working to improve public health. This is especially true when aiming for ambitious and inspiring goals like those outlined in the Ending Cholera Roadmap.
The Cholera Roadmap Research Agenda will identify, prioritize and communicate barriers to implementation and define research questions. It will also show how the research relates to the needs of people working in cholera control programmes and policy. The aim of the Research Agenda is to act as a strategic guide to researchers, donors and decision-makers by identifying the evidence needed to develop and improve strategies for effective control and elimination of cholera.
The Research Agenda will be built in three main steps and the views of the cholera community will be incorporated at every stage. There are many opportunities to get involved with the development of the research agenda. If you’d like to participate in the first step of the process by (i) contributing problems statements that will form the basis of research questions and (ii) evaluating criteria to be used for prioritization, please complete the open online survey. We will be holding a small side-meeting in June, following the Annual GTFCC meeting, to discuss and reach agreement on the final prioritization methodology (Step 2). Finally, in Step 3, a second survey will be sent out to prioritize the identified research questions. The process will be guided by a Steering Committee of experts in cholera research, implementation and policy from global and country-level perspectives.
Prioritising research is a collective activity for deciding which questions are most worth trying to solve and is key for the Research Agenda to act as a guide for decision-making. The gold standard for prioritizing health research is the Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI) method. CHNRI was developed specifically to help guide donors and policy-makers towards the actions and investments required to meet a health goal. CHNRI uses both qualitative engagement methods to understand the context and quantitative scoring methods to form a “to-do” list of research priorities. The main strength to this method is that it is an inclusive, systematic, transparent and iterative process that engages a wide range of experts. MMGH will be using the CHRNI method and tailoring it to the context of the Cholera Roadmap.
The final Research Agenda, expected to be completed by the end of 2020, should give clear guidance on the priorities within and across different areas of cholera research. It will also highlight dependencies and showcase the priorities according to specific remits, such as innovation or evaluation research. Ultimately, having a jointly developed research agenda should help ensure the research produced is both useful and used by decision-makers and will bring us another step closer to achieving the Roadmap goals.
Please e-mail Helen Groves at h.groves@wellcome.ac.uk if you have any questions or would like to get involved.
