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WHO
Collaborative Programme
Health
System Research
Situation Analysis:
Lebanon is progressing well in promoting health research and health systems research.
The National Council for Scientific Research is the recognized official focal point and coordinator of health research and health systems research, having a set budget for research, but its role in identifying priority research areas remains weak. The MOH has also an assigned focal point for research; however, his role is very marginalized.
A National Workshop supported by WHO for development of national health research took place during November 1997, where priority areas for health research and health systems research have been identified.
A great need for training and building up researchers capabilities on writing research proposals exists. The first workshop on development of research proposals, writing scientific papers and editing medical journals, supported by WHO, was held in July 1999. A second one should be planned for.
The coordination between the National Council, the Ministry of Health and universities is relatively smooth. However, a lot of duplication still occurs in areas of health research.
In the past decade, efforts to improve the Health System in Lebanon have been deployed so that it responds better to the changing health needs of the population, and to adapt better to the changing economic situation of the population.
Over the past biennium, several studies have been conducted or started in relation to health system assessment or development.
In the context of the Health Financing Reform project and the Health Systems Performance Assessment, the following studies have been implemented starting the year 1999:
- National Health Accounts
- National Household Expenditures and Utilization Survey
- National Burden of Disease
- Health System Responsiveness, household based (on going)
- Health Systems Responsiveness, postal based
- Fair Financing study
- Key Informant study
The main constraints, however, remain as follows:
- Awareness among scientific and academic institutions of the existing data and on-going research is not sufficient
- Duplication of work
- Lack of clear health system research policy
The objectives for the next biennium would be:
- Diffuse the data available from studies done
- Define the Health Systems research Policy to be adopted in the coming five years
- Identify priority areas of Health Systems research
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