SciDev.Net

This report, published by the Global Forum for Health Research, tracks global investments in health research and development (R&D).

The authors review global targets and commitments for R&D in health and evaluate how well these are being met. They highlight the differences in funding by region, including analyses from Argentina, China and the United States; and provide a breakdown of investments in R&D for cancer and 20 widespread infectious diseases.

They also describe the different sources of R&D funding, providing data on private, public and not-for-profit investments.

The authors discuss the implications of the current funding climate for future health research and make recommendations for improving research agendas, suggesting that R&D investments must match the health needs of developing countries now and in the future.

This extensive report was one of the first to document the scale of the problem of chronic diseases in developing countries, and crucially, to offer guidance on feasible and practical methods of tackling them.

The document starts by laying out in detail the profiles of chronic diseases in different countries, projections for the future, and how chronic diseases are linked with poverty. It also examines in depth the economic costs of such diseases and the macroeconomic consequences of not tackling them quickly enough. The authors outline interventions — whether community, workplace, or school — that have robust evidence supporting them.

The report ends with a call for a unifying framework of global health experts and stakeholders, in which the government has a key role. It also specifies what policymakers need to do to ensure that measures to tackle chronic diseases are put into action.