Institutions in high-income countries (HICs) are the main funders and generators of academic knowledge on health systems in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs), and much too often this knowledge reflects their priorities rather than the needs of health systems in LMICs. This power imbalance between HICs and LMICs has been the focus of calls for reforms […]
In April 2018, a group of 29 global health researchers and practitioners from various disciplines, institutions, and career phases—from students to CEOs—came together for the Workshop on Ethically Managing Global Health Fieldwork Risks held at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, USA. All the participants had worked in global health, and experienced situations in the […]
Gender-based violence (GBV) is a major public health problem that is exacerbated in armed conflict settings. While specialized guidelines exist for conducting research with GBV, guidance on disseminating findings from GBV research is scant. This paper describes ethical considerations of designing and disseminating research findings on GBV, armed conflict, and mental health (including alcohol misuse) […]
In this commentary, we discuss a photography competition, launched during the summer of 2014, to explore the everyday stories of how gender plays out within health systems around the world. While no submission fees were charged nor financial awards involved, the winning entries were exhibited at the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Cape […]
Health-related research funders, regulators and journals expect that de-identified individual-level health data be shared widely, with as few restrictions as possible; yet, in reality, the volume of shared data remains low. Health researchers and other data producers are reluctant to share their data unless they are confident that their datasets are of high quality and […]
TDR and WHO’s Global Health Ethics team have jointly developed a training course for researchers and research ethics committees on the important ethical considerations in implementation research (IR). The course comprises six interactive modules interspersed with activities including case studies, role-play and quizzes: Module 1: Introduction to IRModule 2: Ethical considerations in IRModule 3: Ethical […]
While the idea of decolonizing global health has gained prominence recently, it is not new. Discussions about the impact of the colonial legacy on health systems began with the end of the colonial system. A discussion among academics, activists, health practitioners, and others, that is taking on new urgency, as actors look to identify and […]
The field of Health Policy System Research (HPSR) offers us valuable theorisations and empirical work to guide us on how we can engage with the complex social, economic and political nature of health systems today. However, the field has not been able to fully grapple with the blind spots that are ever present in our reality. […]
This problem of consulting malpractice is merely one facet of a larger issue of how global health, even today, is still colonial in many ways, and how high-income country experts and institutions are valued much more than expertise in low- and middle-income countries. This article makes suggestions on how global health consulting can be decolonised. Pai M (2019) 10 […]
In a Viewpoint in the Lancet, experiences of censorship in donor-funded evaluation research were shared. The authors warned about a potential trend in which donors and their implementing partners use ethical and methodological arguments to undermine research. Reactions to the Viewpoint—and lively debate at the 2018 Global Symposium on Health Systems Research—suggest that similar experiences are common in implementation […]