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DFID Health Research Programme Consortia (RPCs)

Theme 1: Health Systems, Economics and Financing
1. Consortium For Research On Equity And Health Systems (CREHS)
2. Future Health Systems: Making Health Systems Work for the Poor

Theme 2: Communicable Diseases: Vulnerability, Risk and Poverty
3. Team for Applied Research to Generate Effective Tools and Strategies (TARGETS)
4. Communicable Diseases: Vulnerability, Risk and Poverty (COMDIS)

Theme 3: Reproductive Health and HIV
5. Research and Capacity Building in Reproductive and Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS in Developing Countries

Theme 4: Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights
6. Realising Rights: Improving Sexual and Reproductive Health for Poor and Vulnerable Populations

Theme 5: Maternal, Neonatal and Child Health
7. Achieving MDGs 4 and 5: Strategic Research to Inform Policy on Maternal and Newborn Health

Theme 6: Mental Health
8. Mental Health Policy Development and Implementation in Africa: Breaking the Cycle of Mental Ill-Health and Poverty

Theme 7: HIV and AIDS
9. Addressing the Balance of Burden in AIDS (ABBA)
10. Evidence for Action: An International Research Consortium to Maximise Benefits & Equity of HIV Treatment & Care Systems

Theme 8: Systematic Reviews
11. Effective Health Care Research Programme Consortium (EHCRPC)

Last updated 17 February 2009
See the R4D website for more information about the health research funded by DFID

Consortium For Research On Equity And Health Systems (CREHS)

CREHS aims to produce new knowledge on how to strengthen health system policies and interventions in ways which preferentially benefit the poorest people of the world. It is also strengthening the capacity of consortium partners to support local and global policy development through relevant, high quality, timely and well communicated research, and to develop as regional hubs of expertise.

For more information, see the CREHS website and the CREHS entry on R4D.

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The consortium's aim is to create knowledge and shape future health systems that will benefit the world's poor. The RPC will bring policy-makers from influential developing countries together with leading public health and development research institutions to test strategies in three main areas:

• Ways in which the financing of health care can reduce peoples' risk of poverty;
• Ways to improve access to health services in settings where the relationships between government, the private sector, health providers, civil society and the public are changing rapidly; and
• Ways in which health systems research can influence policy and programs to promote the interests of the poor.

For more information, see the Future Health Systems website and the Future Health Systems entry on R4D.

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Team for Applied Research to Generate Effective Tools and Strategies (TARGETS)

The main aim of TARGETS is to improve the health of the poor and vulnerable through effective communicable disease control. The research is building on more than a decade of productive DFID-funded research by consortium members into the control of tuberculosis and malaria. Initial work will focus on those two diseases, but is gradually extending to other communicable diseases including meningitis, diarrhoea and acute respiratory infections.

TARGETS is conducting research to develop new tools to diagnose, prevent and treat communicable diseases, but is also developing and testing new strategies to implement these tools sustainably at national scale, and to improve effective access to them by the poor and vulnerable.

For more information, see the TARGETS website and the TARGETS entry on R4D.

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The aim of COMDIS is to ensure access to effective interventions on a far greater scale and reaching vulnerable people. COMDIS is researching and develop ing feasible and affordable interventions for TB, malaria and HIV care. It will investigate patient and provider issues and evaluate approaches to improve utilisation, delivery and quality of interventions together with health systems issues. A key strategy is to anchor research within operational programmes, so that knowledge can be rapidly incorporated into policy and practice at scale in partner countries and elsewhere.

For more information, see the COMDIS website and the COMDIS entry on R4D.

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Research and Capacity Building in Reproductive and Sexual Health and HIV/AIDS in Developing Countries

The purpose of this consortium is to support a research programme that strengthens the evidence base to:

• enable policy makers to identify and prioritise interventions that will improve reproductive and sexual health and reduce HIV incidence among economically poor populations in Africa and Asia;
• ensure that the results of the research are made available to policy makers at national and international levels in an intelligible and relevant form;
• strengthen research capacity in partner institutions in developing countries to ensure that the programme is sustainable.

For more information, see the consortium's website and its entry on R4D.

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Realising Rights: Improving Sexual and Reproductive Health for Poor and Vulnerable Populations

Realising Rights brings together researchers from several disciplines to focus on populations in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia with the greatest access and entitlement problems in SRH: the very poor, young people - especially girls and young women, and other hard-to-reach groups such as migrants and those most vulnerable to stigma.

The main objectives of the programme are to:

• Improve the evidence base on the high levels of SRH morbidity, mortality and unmet need among poor and vulnerable populations and communicate it to policy and advocacy audiences;
• Find innovative ways to improve access to existing and new low cost SRH technologies and services by poor women and men;
• Improve knowledge of how SRH rights can be translated into reality in locally appropriate and sensitive ways;
• Build capacity to put sexual and reproductive health and rights onto national and local policy agendas.

For more information, see the Realising Rights website and the Realising Rights entry on R4D.

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Towards 4 and 5: Strategic research to inform policy on maternal and newborn care

Towards 4 and 5's objectives are:

• to explore opportunities for improving integrated mother and infant care delivery through preparatory research and consultation with policymakers in partner countries;
• to provide population-based evidence on interventions to improve the survival of women and infants through (i) community interventions and (ii) health services delivery;
• to provide the evidence base for policy making by documenting the contexts in which these integrated service and community interventions work.

For more information, see the Towards 4 and 5 website and the Towards 4 and 5 entry on R4D.

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Mental health policy development and implementation in Africa: breaking the cycle of mental ill-health and poverty

The research programme consortium aims to provide new knowledge regarding comprehensive multi-sectoral approaches to breaking the negative cycle of poverty and mental ill-health. The programme is undertaking an analysis of existing mental health policies in Ghana, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia, providing interventions to assist in the development and implementation of mental health policies in those countries, and evaluate the policy implementation over a five-year period.

For more information, see the consortium's website and its entry on R4D.

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Addressing the Balance of Burden in AIDS (ABBA)

ABBA is helping DFID to drive forward its strategy for assisting countries to tackle HIV and AIDS. The goal is to improve the effectiveness of efforts to reduce poverty and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by lessening people’s vulnerability to HIV.

ABBA assists governments in Africa to use research evidence about factors that influence the impact of HIV and AIDS on poor and vulnerable groups in order to provide greater benefits from programmes to tackle HIV in health, education and other sectors.

For more information, see the ABBA website and the ABBA entry on R4D.

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The goal of the research programme is to contribute to knowledge on how to design, manage and deliver comprehensive HIV treatment and care programmes in resource poor settings.

The partners to this consortium are leaders in research into HIV care for children and adults, and systems of delivery. They also include experts in policy and advocacy work, and civil society strengthening. Bringing these institutions together will deliver research solutions that can be translated into policy and actions rapidly and on a large scale in developing countries.

For more information, see the Evidence for Action website and the Evidence for Action entry on R4D.

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Effective Health Care Research Programme Consortium (EHCRPC)

This Consortium is about increasing decisions relating to the health sector based on best available evidence in middle-income and low-income countries. The Effective Health Care Research Programme Consortium focus on two main areas:

• Reliable, up-to-date, scientifically defensible and relevant evidence in malaria and tuberculosis, child health, maternal health, and health systems.
• Effective dialogue and influence between research, policy, and practice communities in public and private sector.

The Consortium activities include:

• Preparing and updating Cochrane Reviews about the effects of health care relevant to low-income and middle-income countries.
• Identifying approaches to ensure dissemination and use of the results of the results of systematic reviews in decision making.

For more information, see the EHCRPC website and the EHCRPC entry on R4D.

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Last updated 16 February 2009
See the R4D website for more information about the health research funded by DFID