Introduction to Health Research Priority Setting Methods and Application Recommendations of Methods in Field of Traditional Chinese Medicine / 中国实验方剂学杂志

ABSTRACT

Health research priority setting， based on the existing disease burden or healthcare needs， screens out specific areas or topics with relatively high research priority by scientific and systematic methods， and optimizes the allocation of health resources by influencing healthcare decision-making， so as to alleviate the imbalance between regional or global health and development. Many developed countries have carried out related research and practical work on different scales， and the World Health Organization （WHO） attaches great importance to the transformation and application of relevant achievements in developing countries. As the largest developing country in the world， China's research in this field started relatively late， and only a small number of scholars have carried out part of the localization methodology research and practice according to the specific national conditions. However， health research priority setting has not yet attracted the attention of large-scale research institutions or government organizations in China. Although the priority setting is rarely mentioned in the research on traditional Chinese medicine （TCM）， the research and decision-making on the diseases responding specifically to TCM can also be regarded as the practical work of exploring the priority of TCM. Policymakers have a sense of priority support in the "priority of TCM research"， but the decisions from the top design are mainly based on the consensus reached by high-level think tanks. There is a lack of extensive research， and moreover， the data of multiple stakeholders are not included. Therefore， it is urgent to introduce appropriate priority setting methods to solve the problem of transparency and scientificity in the decision-making process. Given the perspective of the specific implementation， the present study introduced three international priority setting methods， i.e.， the James Lind Alliance and Priority Setting Partnerships（JLAPSP，）the Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative（CHNRI）， and the Council on Health Research and Development （COHRED）， and presented relevant recommendations on how to apply them in the research of TCM， which is expected to provide references for the local research.