Regional and national priorities in health research, Peru 2010-2014: a process with a participative and decentralist approach

Abstract

Peru has performed many efforts to identify national health research priorities since 1974 through processes historically planned based on expert opinions, with little impact. It was decided to generate a change in the management of research in order to overcome the weaknesses of the previous processes, applying a methodology with a participative and decentralized approach. In order to establish the regional and national research priorities of the key stakeholders, the Instituto Nacional de Salud (Peru) developed a process of citizenship consult through three phases i) advocacy and workshops in 20 regions; ii) a workshop for the analysis of the Concerted National Health Plan with 200 experts in Lima; iii) the national forum, with 500 representatives in 50 working tables. The research priorities of Peru for the period 2010- 2014 are: research to recognize the problems of health human resources, to recognize the mental health problems, impact evaluations of the social programs for reduction of children malnutrition, impact evaluation of social programs of the actual interventions in maternal mortality and operative research and impact evaluation of interventions in communicable diseases.