ABSTRACT
In September 2009, the United Kingdom (UK) Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust and the Department of Health (England) commissioned RAND Europe to investigate the characteristics of research cited in two UK clinical guidelines: Dementia and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). The exploratory work is part of an overall drive among funders to understand better how research reaches policy and practice. The objectives of our exploratory study were to understand the following questions.What are the characteristics of publications cited in these clinical guidelines?On those papers with a UK affiliation, who funded the research cited in these clinical guidelines?
ABSTRACT
Tobacco use is one of the largest avoidable causes of morbidity and premature death in the EU. Whilst smoking prevalence in the EU has been declining over the past 30 years, smoking has remained more prevalent among men than women in the EU-27, with some of the new Member States reporting the widest gaps between male and female smokers. For young smokers (13 to 15 years old) this situation is somewhat reversed, with slightly more girls than boys smoking. Against this background, the European Commission Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection (DG SANCO) considered a revision of the Tobacco Products Directive 2001/37/EC across five general areas: scope of the directive, labelling requirements, registration and market control fees, ingredients, and sales arrangements. More specifically, the types of policy options under consideration included (but were not limited to): an increase of warning label sizes on the back of packaging to 100%, a restriction for the display of products at retail outlets and an introduction of additional measurement method for TNCO (the modified ISO method) with maximum limits set accordingly. DG SANCO commissioned RAND Europe to provide support in assessing the potential health, macroeconomic, and compliance cost and administrative burden impacts of revising the Tobacco Products Directive. In addition to assessing impacts, the study provides an up-to-date overview of the evidence and basis for current tobacco product regulation that may be of interest to a wider audience interested in tobacco control policies.
ABSTRACT
The Department of Health (England) commissioned this evaluation of the pilot Health Technology Cooperatives (HTCs), which are part of its research infrastructure. Its purpose is to explore how this initiative has affected relationships between clinical, industrial and academic partners; how the HTCs fit into the current health innovation landscape; and the alignment of HTC activities to the goals set out in the NIHR strategy. Since the HTC scheme was intended to focus on medical devices, this review investigated how medical device development is being pursued by other similar entities in England, Australia and the USA. The key question was whether the institutional relationships initiated by the HTCs are contributing to the health research system in England and if this scheme is the most effective way of pursuing these relationships. This review had no specific theory or hypothesis to test, so information was gathered so as to allow key conclusions to be drawn and linked to existing theories. This review used documented evidence from the institutions involved as well as interviews. The pilot HTCs have shown that there are different, but equally legitimate, management approaches to the clinician-industry-patient relationship. These different approaches are reflections both of the disease field and the host institution culture. Neither HTC has concluded how best to sustain activities in the long term, particularly core management facilities such as supporting initial meetings with potential partners and early development of technologies from non-commercial sources. Recommendations focused on how best to support core HTC activities in the future.
ABSTRACT
The European Commission Health and Consumer Protection Directorate-General (DG SANCO) commissioned RAND Europe to provide support in developing a comprehensive data strategy for DG SANCO that meets the needs of increasingly evidence-based policymaking in the future. This work builds on previous work by RAND Europe conducted for DG SANCO, mapping out international good practice of data management. The work described in this study had two aims: to assess the current data management practices within DG SANCO that relate to the four specific issues identified by DG SANCO: data needs, DG SANCO data sources, key partnerships on data, and data quality; and to develop, on the basis of this review, recommendations for improving DG SANCO's current data management and the definition of DG SANCO's Good Practice Model for Data Strategy. This article presents the findings of RAND Europe's analysis.
