E Ochodo, Stellenbosch University, Evidence synthesis for building a translation pipeline to eliminate infectious diseases

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Infectious diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria still cause considerable illness and death in Africa. This is despite malaria and TB being treatable, the availability of tests to detect these diseases and the presence of treatment to normalize the health of people living with HIV. One possible explanation for this could be the ineffective ways used to implement or translate findings of research to inform policy. Research translation involves getting the right information to the right people at the right format they can easily understand to inform decision-making. A policy that is implemented too rapidly or too slowly can minimize effective control of disease. Getting this right is important and needs rigorous methods and science to help assure this.Summarizing available research findings and presenting it in a way that can be easily interpreted and understood (otherwise known as evidence synthesis) can help in decision making. Multiple influencing factors exist between the decision to use an intervention and its use in practice. A portfolio of integrated research findings from different fields including technical aspects, costs, acceptability and practicality is needed but methods of integration are still unclear. Our vision is a broader base of research findings for implementation being supported by summarising research findings from different fields to inform policy, implementation and revisions of policies.In Africa, there has been limited research and development on methods to improve how research findings are summarised and how to improve translation of research findings to policy. Research methods tailored to the African context are needed to facilitate better uptake and sustainability in the region. This project aims to formally develop an approach to translating research findings into policy through summarizing and integrating research findings from different fields. We also aim to recommend methods of improving translation of evidence into policy. Ultimately, through this, we aim to establish a research group and in future a sub-regional centre for the science of evidence synthesis and research translation in Kenya. To our knowledge such a directive or coordinating centre does not yet exist in Kenya. The objectives of this project are:1. To summarize the effect and delivery of new and existing interventions on HIV, TB and malaria per national priorities of Kenya.2. To develop and implement methods of summarizing and integrating research findings and knowledge from different fields.3. To develop summaries of reviews generated by summarizing and integrating research and knowledge.4. To communicate and circulate know-how and products of this integrative approach to policy makers.In the process of achieving this, we will establish a research group in evidence synthesis and research translation in HIV, TB and malaria in Kenya.This project is timely and has potential for great impact. Under new leadership, there is an explicit shift in the World Health Organization (WHO) to devolve policy making to regional level. The future requires the position of control for evidence synthesis to be firmly implanted in the research infrastructure in Africa. The findings of this project will be useful to policy makers in Kenya who require capacity to integrate research findings from different areas when making decisions.