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KEYSTONE

Inaugural KEYSTONE Course on Health Policy and Systems Research 2015

Research Plan - 1

   

 

KEYSTONE

Research plan - 1

Kabir Sheikh

2 March 2015 

   

 

KEYSTONE

Research plan template• Background and rationale (1 page)• Brief review of literature (2 pages)• Research question(s) • Conceptual framework (if any) (1 page)• Study design (1-2 pages)• Methodology (2 pages)• Ensuring research quality (< 1 page)• Ethical considerations (< 1 page)• Outcomes (1 page)

– Audience and beneficiaries– Impact pathways

• Timeline • Financial plan

   

 

KEYSTONE

Scope of HPSR

• Distinguished by issues and questions considered, not by a disciplinary base, and includes:– research focused on health services as well as promotion of health

– concern for global and international issues as well as national and sub-national issues

– research on or of policy – addresses politics of health systems and health systems services

• Promotes work that explicitly seeks to influence policy

Courtesy CHEPSAA

   

 

KEYSTONE

Topics of Enquiry

Systems ‘Software’Ideas and interests, 

Relationships and power, Values and norms

Systems ‘Hardware’Human Resources, Finance, Medicines & technology, Organizational structure, Service infrastructure, Information systems

International

National

Subnational

Local

ARENA

   

 

KEYSTONE

Scope & nature of HPSR (continued)

HPSR is not:• Clinical or basic science

• Only rooted in health economics or focused on financing issues (though both important)

• Focused on disease distribution, causes and interventions (but rather generic organisational & societal‘structures’ through which interventions are implemented)

Courtesy CHEPSAA

   

 

KEYSTONE

Scope & nature (continued)

Specific services/disease programmes:

• Often a tracer for understanding systems issues e.g. maternal health services; the impact of district strengthening on child health outcomes

• May be researched because they have system wide effects e.g. antiretroviral therapy

• Must think BEYOND the programme/service!

Courtesy CHEPSAA

   

 

KEYSTONE

Review basics1. Identify the review question or focus2. Frame the area you are searching (year, area or topic)3. Search for primary studies and theoretical papers (using 

databases, search engines, or a particular publication)

4. Select papers – inclusion/exclusion criteria; quality appraisal (assess relevance & rigour of what you find)

5. Collect the key items or extract the data6. Review papers & data7. Synthesis (make meaning, pull together a coherent argument)

   

 

KEYSTONE

• The question drives the study

   

 

KEYSTONE

Generating questions• Starting points = focus/terrain of health policy & health 

systems– consider level (macro/meso/micro/cross-level)

• And consider– What are research users’ ideas?– What past work?– Disciplinary perspectives?

• Thinking about purpose of research: normative vs  exploratory/ descriptive/ explanatory questions

   

 

KEYSTONE

Whose ideas? 

Research question

Community group

Patient group

District managerHospital managerNational managerInternational 

agency

Researcher

Same issue, different questions?

Different issues & questions?

   

 

KEYSTONE

What is the study ‘purpose’? Normative/evaluative: Seeks to generate/identify norms, best practices,’gold standard’ interventions

Exploratory: To find out what is happening, especially in little understood situations

Descriptive: To give accurate profile of people, events, situations

Explanatory: To explain patterns relating to phenomenon being researched; To identify relationships between aspects of phenomenon

Emancipatory: To create opportunities and the will to engage in social action

Robson, 2002; Thomas, Chataway & Wuyts, 1998; Yin, 2009 

   

 

KEYSTONE

What makes a ‘good’ HPSR question?Adapted from Robson, 2002

• Substantively relevant: worthwhile, non-trivial questions, worthy of the effort to be expended  +

• Clear: unambiguous and easily understood  +

• Specific: sufficiently specific to be clear about what constitutes an answer  +                      

• Answerable: can see what data are needed to answer it and how those data will be collected  + 

• Interconnected: questions are related in some  meaningful way, forming a coherent whole

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