Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Global health research on healthcare and other factors contributing to good health is increasingly funded by corporations or the foundations they give money to. While this has funded valuable studies and made contributions to better population health, it can sometimes compromise the scientific value of the research. It may also lead to inappropriate research priorities, and can help irresponsible corporations to improve their image without making meaningful changes to their practices. Health research is highly competitive and researchers are often extremely busy. Their decisions about whether or not to accept corporate funds often rely on personal experience and judgment, but not on research about the effects of corporate funding. It is therefore possible that such decisions about corporate funding can lead to consequences that are bad for health in the long term. The proposed session at the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research will present a set of questions that can help global health researchers to make decisions about corporate research funding in a way that is more consistent, thoughtful and informed by scholarship. The questions will be justified using a review of how corporate funding has been found to affect health research, and illustrated using the experiences of a Canadian global health organization. Participants will next apply the questions to case studies, including ones drawn from their own experiences, before discussing overall lessons for global health. The session will help to promote more thoughtful approaches to research funding for global health. It may therefore lead to health research that more effectively engages with the root causes of health problems. This should in turn promote healthcare and public health policies and interventions that most effectively improve the health of populations around the world.