OA ePub ISBN 978-1-4473-6176-3 OA Pdf The digital PDF and ePub versions of this title are availab... more OA ePub ISBN 978-1-4473-6176-3 OA Pdf The digital PDF and ePub versions of this title are available Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (https:// creativecommons.org/ licenses/ by-nc-nd/ 4.0/) which permits reproduction and distribution for non-commercial use without further permission provided the original work is attributed. The derivative works do not need to be licensed on the same terms.
OA ePub ISBN 978-1-4473-6176-3 OA Pdf The digital PDF and ePub versions of this title are availab... more OA ePub ISBN 978-1-4473-6176-3 OA Pdf The digital PDF and ePub versions of this title are available Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (https:// creativecommons.org/ licenses/ by-nc-nd/ 4.0/) which permits reproduction and distribution for non-commercial use without further permission provided the original work is attributed. The derivative works do not need to be licensed on the same terms.
The digital PDF and ePub versions of this title are available Open Access and distributed under t... more The digital PDF and ePub versions of this title are available Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (https:// creativecommons.org/ licenses/ by-nc-nd/ 4.0/) which permits reproduction and distribution for non-commercial use without further permission provided the original work is attributed. The derivative works do not need to be licensed on the same terms.
OA ePub ISBN 978-1-4473-6176-3 OA Pdf The digital PDF and ePub versions of this title are availab... more OA ePub ISBN 978-1-4473-6176-3 OA Pdf The digital PDF and ePub versions of this title are available Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (https:// creativecommons.org/ licenses/ by-nc-nd/ 4.0/) which permits reproduction and distribution for non-commercial use without further permission provided the original work is attributed. The derivative works do not need to be licensed on the same terms.
Abstinence, being faithful to one partner and correct and consistent condom use (known as ABC) ha... more Abstinence, being faithful to one partner and correct and consistent condom use (known as ABC) has been a widely discussed and utilised HIV/AIDS prevention strategy. In 2003, policy analysts predicted that Zambia would follow the Ugandan trajectory of HIV/AIDS incidence decline, because both countries were implementing ABC. However Zambia presently remains one of the countries with the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates. Limited policy research has been carried out to investigate why countries that have utilised ABC have experienced different HIV policy outcomes. This study investigates this issue by studying the extent to which poor policy design, content or implementation was to blame. The study employs a mixed methods approach and the analysis was guided by Knoepfel et al.'s (2007) framework which examines the policy processes though the interaction of policy actors, resources and institutional rules. The study found that ambivalence towards condom promotion, gender inequity a...
Community and public engagement (CPE) is increasingly becoming a key component in global health r... more Community and public engagement (CPE) is increasingly becoming a key component in global health research. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is one of the leading funders in the UK of global health research and requires a robust CPE element in the research it funds, along with CPE monitoring and evaluation. But what does “good” CPE look like? And what factors facilitate or inhibit good CPE? Addressing these questions would help ensure clarity of expectations of award holders, and inform effective monitoring frameworks and the development of guidance. The work reported upon here builds on existing guidance and is a first step in trying to identify the key components of what “good” CPE looks like, which can be used for all approaches to global health research and in a range of different settings and contexts. This article draws on data collected as part of an evaluation of CPE by 53 NIHR-funded award holders to provide insights on CPE practice in global health research....
Background and Rationale: Internationally, the idea of "co-production' has become more popular in... more Background and Rationale: Internationally, the idea of "co-production' has become more popular in health research because of the promise of partnership between researchers and patients to create research that focuses on patients' needs. Patient and public involvement (PPI) at an early stage in deciding what research should be funded, can improve the quality and impact of research. However, professional power over the process places limits on the public practising their participatory rights for involvement in commissioning research that affects them and can leave members of the public feeling unheard or excluded, particularly within the context of early phase applied health research. Aim: This article explores whether and how the public can be involved in the co-production of research commissioning early on in the process, with a focus on the power relations that pervade basic and early phase translational applied health research. Methods: An exploratory literature review of international peer-reviewed and gray health research literature using structured searches of electronic databases and key search terms. Results: There is very little literature that critically evaluates how PPI is embedded into the early phases of the commissioning process. The field of basic or early translational applied research appear to be particularly challenging. Four themes which emerged from the review are: reasons for PPI in research commissioning; benefits of PPI at strategic levels of research commissioning; contributions of patients and members of the public; improving PPI in research commissioning. Conclusion: Although the public are being consulted at some stages of the research commissioning process, it is evident that the process of determining research priorities and agendas is far from being widely co-produced. Moving PPI from a consultative paternalistic model to a collaborative partnership model should be a priority for commissioners. Significant changes to communication, practices, systems, structures, or cultures that exclude patients and the public from contributing in meaningful ways, are needed to fulfill the potential of co-produced models of research commissioning.
Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the ac... more Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. DC, GG, DT, SC Acknowledgments Our thanks to the nurse participants at the community health centres who gave generously of their time for the interviews; the City of Cape Town Health Department that gave permission and expressed interest in the study; the facility managers for agreeing to use their centres as study sites. We are very grateful to Ms Nomazizi Cishe fo her expert interviews, transcription and translation.
After publication of our article [1] it has come to our attention that Fig. 3 was accidentally om... more After publication of our article [1] it has come to our attention that Fig. 3 was accidentally omitted. In the section "Ease of reading", the sentence "FRE scores were recorded for the original, author-revised and independently edited PES (Fig. 2)." should read "FRE scores were recorded for the original, author-revised and independently edited PES (Fig. 3)." Figure 3 and its legend appear below.
There is a need for the authors of research reports to be able to communicate their work clearly ... more There is a need for the authors of research reports to be able to communicate their work clearly and effectively to readers who are not familiar with the research area. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), along with a number of other funding bodies and journals, require researchers to write short lay summaries, often termed plain English summaries (PESs), to make research accessible to the general public. Because many researchers write using technical, specialised language, particularly in scientific reports, writing PESs can be challenging. In this study we looked at how to improve the quality of PESs. We took PESs which had been submitted to the NIHR Journals Library and asked authors to rewrite them using new guidance. We also asked an independent medical writer to edit the summaries. We measured the quality of these three versions (original summary, rewritten summary and edited summary) in two ways. First, we asked a group of people who were not specialists in the subject area to read and rate how easy the summaries were to understand. Secondly, we used a well-known measure called the Flesch reading ease score to assess how easy the PESs were to read. We found that there was no difference in how easy people found the summaries to understand across the three versions. However, the PESs that were rewritten by the authors and that were edited by the independent medical writer were both easier to read than the originals. This shows that PESs can be improved and for organisations who feel that employing an independent writer to edit summaries, providing clear, practical guidance to authors may be a cost-effective alternative. Abstract Background Plain English summaries (PES) or lay summaries are often included as part of research reports and journal articles. These summaries are vital to ensure that research findings are accessible and available to non-specialist audiences, for example patients and members of the public. Writing a PES requires the adoption of a different style than is generally used in a traditional scientific report, and researchers can find this challenging. This study explored two possible ways to improve the quality of PESs in the NIHR Journals Library: 1) Providing enhanced guidance to authors and asking them to rewrite the PES and 2) Employing an independent medical writer to edit the PES.
Background/aims: Clinical trial oversight is central to the safety of participants and production... more Background/aims: Clinical trial oversight is central to the safety of participants and production of robust data. The United Kingdom Medical Research Council originally set out an oversight structure comprising three committees in 1998. The first committee, led by the trial team, is hands-on with trial conduct/operations (‘Trial Management Group’) and essential. The second committee (Data Monitoring Committee), usually completely independent of the trial, reviews accumulating trial evidence and is used by most later phase trials. The Independent Data Monitoring Committee makes recommendations to the third oversight committee. The third committee, (‘Trial Steering Committee’), facilitates in-depth interactions of independent and non-independent trial members and gives broader oversight (blinded to comparative analysis). We investigated the roles and functioning of the third oversight committee with multiple research methods. We reflect upon these findings to standardise the committee...
OA ePub ISBN 978-1-4473-6176-3 OA Pdf The digital PDF and ePub versions of this title are availab... more OA ePub ISBN 978-1-4473-6176-3 OA Pdf The digital PDF and ePub versions of this title are available Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (https:// creativecommons.org/ licenses/ by-nc-nd/ 4.0/) which permits reproduction and distribution for non-commercial use without further permission provided the original work is attributed. The derivative works do not need to be licensed on the same terms.
OA ePub ISBN 978-1-4473-6176-3 OA Pdf The digital PDF and ePub versions of this title are availab... more OA ePub ISBN 978-1-4473-6176-3 OA Pdf The digital PDF and ePub versions of this title are available Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (https:// creativecommons.org/ licenses/ by-nc-nd/ 4.0/) which permits reproduction and distribution for non-commercial use without further permission provided the original work is attributed. The derivative works do not need to be licensed on the same terms.
The digital PDF and ePub versions of this title are available Open Access and distributed under t... more The digital PDF and ePub versions of this title are available Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (https:// creativecommons.org/ licenses/ by-nc-nd/ 4.0/) which permits reproduction and distribution for non-commercial use without further permission provided the original work is attributed. The derivative works do not need to be licensed on the same terms.
OA ePub ISBN 978-1-4473-6176-3 OA Pdf The digital PDF and ePub versions of this title are availab... more OA ePub ISBN 978-1-4473-6176-3 OA Pdf The digital PDF and ePub versions of this title are available Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (https:// creativecommons.org/ licenses/ by-nc-nd/ 4.0/) which permits reproduction and distribution for non-commercial use without further permission provided the original work is attributed. The derivative works do not need to be licensed on the same terms.
Abstinence, being faithful to one partner and correct and consistent condom use (known as ABC) ha... more Abstinence, being faithful to one partner and correct and consistent condom use (known as ABC) has been a widely discussed and utilised HIV/AIDS prevention strategy. In 2003, policy analysts predicted that Zambia would follow the Ugandan trajectory of HIV/AIDS incidence decline, because both countries were implementing ABC. However Zambia presently remains one of the countries with the highest HIV/AIDS prevalence rates. Limited policy research has been carried out to investigate why countries that have utilised ABC have experienced different HIV policy outcomes. This study investigates this issue by studying the extent to which poor policy design, content or implementation was to blame. The study employs a mixed methods approach and the analysis was guided by Knoepfel et al.'s (2007) framework which examines the policy processes though the interaction of policy actors, resources and institutional rules. The study found that ambivalence towards condom promotion, gender inequity a...
Community and public engagement (CPE) is increasingly becoming a key component in global health r... more Community and public engagement (CPE) is increasingly becoming a key component in global health research. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is one of the leading funders in the UK of global health research and requires a robust CPE element in the research it funds, along with CPE monitoring and evaluation. But what does “good” CPE look like? And what factors facilitate or inhibit good CPE? Addressing these questions would help ensure clarity of expectations of award holders, and inform effective monitoring frameworks and the development of guidance. The work reported upon here builds on existing guidance and is a first step in trying to identify the key components of what “good” CPE looks like, which can be used for all approaches to global health research and in a range of different settings and contexts. This article draws on data collected as part of an evaluation of CPE by 53 NIHR-funded award holders to provide insights on CPE practice in global health research....
Background and Rationale: Internationally, the idea of "co-production' has become more popular in... more Background and Rationale: Internationally, the idea of "co-production' has become more popular in health research because of the promise of partnership between researchers and patients to create research that focuses on patients' needs. Patient and public involvement (PPI) at an early stage in deciding what research should be funded, can improve the quality and impact of research. However, professional power over the process places limits on the public practising their participatory rights for involvement in commissioning research that affects them and can leave members of the public feeling unheard or excluded, particularly within the context of early phase applied health research. Aim: This article explores whether and how the public can be involved in the co-production of research commissioning early on in the process, with a focus on the power relations that pervade basic and early phase translational applied health research. Methods: An exploratory literature review of international peer-reviewed and gray health research literature using structured searches of electronic databases and key search terms. Results: There is very little literature that critically evaluates how PPI is embedded into the early phases of the commissioning process. The field of basic or early translational applied research appear to be particularly challenging. Four themes which emerged from the review are: reasons for PPI in research commissioning; benefits of PPI at strategic levels of research commissioning; contributions of patients and members of the public; improving PPI in research commissioning. Conclusion: Although the public are being consulted at some stages of the research commissioning process, it is evident that the process of determining research priorities and agendas is far from being widely co-produced. Moving PPI from a consultative paternalistic model to a collaborative partnership model should be a priority for commissioners. Significant changes to communication, practices, systems, structures, or cultures that exclude patients and the public from contributing in meaningful ways, are needed to fulfill the potential of co-produced models of research commissioning.
Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the ac... more Agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved. DC, GG, DT, SC Acknowledgments Our thanks to the nurse participants at the community health centres who gave generously of their time for the interviews; the City of Cape Town Health Department that gave permission and expressed interest in the study; the facility managers for agreeing to use their centres as study sites. We are very grateful to Ms Nomazizi Cishe fo her expert interviews, transcription and translation.
After publication of our article [1] it has come to our attention that Fig. 3 was accidentally om... more After publication of our article [1] it has come to our attention that Fig. 3 was accidentally omitted. In the section "Ease of reading", the sentence "FRE scores were recorded for the original, author-revised and independently edited PES (Fig. 2)." should read "FRE scores were recorded for the original, author-revised and independently edited PES (Fig. 3)." Figure 3 and its legend appear below.
There is a need for the authors of research reports to be able to communicate their work clearly ... more There is a need for the authors of research reports to be able to communicate their work clearly and effectively to readers who are not familiar with the research area. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), along with a number of other funding bodies and journals, require researchers to write short lay summaries, often termed plain English summaries (PESs), to make research accessible to the general public. Because many researchers write using technical, specialised language, particularly in scientific reports, writing PESs can be challenging. In this study we looked at how to improve the quality of PESs. We took PESs which had been submitted to the NIHR Journals Library and asked authors to rewrite them using new guidance. We also asked an independent medical writer to edit the summaries. We measured the quality of these three versions (original summary, rewritten summary and edited summary) in two ways. First, we asked a group of people who were not specialists in the subject area to read and rate how easy the summaries were to understand. Secondly, we used a well-known measure called the Flesch reading ease score to assess how easy the PESs were to read. We found that there was no difference in how easy people found the summaries to understand across the three versions. However, the PESs that were rewritten by the authors and that were edited by the independent medical writer were both easier to read than the originals. This shows that PESs can be improved and for organisations who feel that employing an independent writer to edit summaries, providing clear, practical guidance to authors may be a cost-effective alternative. Abstract Background Plain English summaries (PES) or lay summaries are often included as part of research reports and journal articles. These summaries are vital to ensure that research findings are accessible and available to non-specialist audiences, for example patients and members of the public. Writing a PES requires the adoption of a different style than is generally used in a traditional scientific report, and researchers can find this challenging. This study explored two possible ways to improve the quality of PESs in the NIHR Journals Library: 1) Providing enhanced guidance to authors and asking them to rewrite the PES and 2) Employing an independent medical writer to edit the PES.
Background/aims: Clinical trial oversight is central to the safety of participants and production... more Background/aims: Clinical trial oversight is central to the safety of participants and production of robust data. The United Kingdom Medical Research Council originally set out an oversight structure comprising three committees in 1998. The first committee, led by the trial team, is hands-on with trial conduct/operations (‘Trial Management Group’) and essential. The second committee (Data Monitoring Committee), usually completely independent of the trial, reviews accumulating trial evidence and is used by most later phase trials. The Independent Data Monitoring Committee makes recommendations to the third oversight committee. The third committee, (‘Trial Steering Committee’), facilitates in-depth interactions of independent and non-independent trial members and gives broader oversight (blinded to comparative analysis). We investigated the roles and functioning of the third oversight committee with multiple research methods. We reflect upon these findings to standardise the committee...
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