Monthly Archives: December 2014

Global Health, Operational research, Public Health

Looking at the impact of SORT-IT for health programmes

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In order to evaluate the impact of the SORT-IT initiative, Zachariah and colleagues assessed  the changes in health policies and practice following the publications of the module participants.
74% of the studies assessed  (65 out of 88 ) brought an effect on policy and  practice  in one of the following domains: changes in program implementation, adaptation of monitoring tools or changes of existing guidelines. 

Rony Zachariah et al. Research to policy and practice change: is capacity building in operational research delivering the goods? Tropical Medicine & International Health. Volume 19, Issue 9, pages 1068–1075, September 2014

Global Health, Operational research, Public Health

SORT-IT initiative outcomes

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The Union reported on three publications about the results of the SORT-IT initiative

  • After the courses, 62% of participants completed a new research project; 50% published another paper; and 43% facilitated at other operational research courses.  A significant proportion of participants continue to engage in operational research after completing a course, providing evidence of the long-term value of this capacity building model.
  • 74% of the studies produced a reported effect that included changes to programme implementation, adaptation of monitoring tools and changes to existing guidelines.

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Access to care, Global Health, Operational research, Public Health, Research

SORT-IT: public health professionals are asking for it!

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When I started writing in this blog I posted a couple of notes related to the development of operational research. A few month later, here I am with a success story!

SORT-IT  (Structured Operational Research and Training Initiative) is a training model designed by The Union and MSF, who joined with the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases(TDR) at the World Health Organization (WHO) to work toward spreading  operational research skills, in order to encourage public health professionals all over the world (and especially in developing countries) to design, implement and publish research outcomes capable to feed national health programs and thus improve health services for people all over the world.

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Ramsay, Harries, Zachariah et al.,The Structured Operational Research and Training Initiative for public health programmes,  Health Action, vol. 4 no. 2, published 21 June 2014