IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v60y2005i5p937-947.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Assessing the benefits of health research: lessons from research into the use of antenatal corticosteroids for the prevention of neonatal respiratory distress syndrome

Author

Listed:
  • Hanney, Steve
  • Mugford, Miranda
  • Grant, Jonathan
  • Buxton, Martin

Abstract

Do the benefits from health research justify the resources devoted to it? Addressing this should not only meet increasing accountability demands, but could also enhance understanding of research utilisation and how best to organise health research systems to increase the benefits. The process from basic research to eventual application and patient benefit is usually complex. The use of antenatal corticosteroids when preterm delivery is expected has featured large in the debates about research utilisation and provides an insight into these complexities. Based on an analysis of previous modelling of research utilisation and payback assessment, a framework is developed in which the existing literature on the use of corticosteroids, combined with new material developed by the authors, can be reviewed and synthesised. The move from animal studies to human trials was undertaken by the same individual. Some early clinical application of the findings occurred concurrently with a series of further trials. Nevertheless, the implementation of these findings stalled rather than accelerated as is predicted by some models. The eventual systematic review of the trials played a part in the development of the Cochrane Collaboration and increased the impact on practice. Further implementation approaches were used in various countries, including clinical guidelines, a National Institutes of Health Consensus Conference, and various implementation projects within the UK. This paper shows how an assessment of the benefits from this stream of research and utilisation projects can be constructed. It concludes that the application of a model for assessing payback can help to demonstrate the benefits from the research in this field and enhance our understanding of research utilisation.

Suggested Citation

  • Hanney, Steve & Mugford, Miranda & Grant, Jonathan & Buxton, Martin, 2005. "Assessing the benefits of health research: lessons from research into the use of antenatal corticosteroids for the prevention of neonatal respiratory distress syndrome," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(5), pages 937-947, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:60:y:2005:i:5:p:937-947
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(04)00324-7
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Drummond, Michael F. & Davies, Linda M. & Ferris, Frederick L., 1992. "Assessing the costs and benefits of medical research: The diabetic retinopathy study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 34(9), pages 973-981, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aymerich, Marta & Carrion, Carme & Gallo, Pedro & Garcia, Maria & López-Bermejo, Abel & Quesada, Miquel & Ramos, Rafel, 2012. "Measuring the payback of research activities: A feasible ex-post evaluation methodology in epidemiology and public health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 505-510.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michael Drummond & Bernie O'Brienm, 1993. "Clinical importance, statistical significance and the assessment of economic and quality‐of‐life outcomes," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 2(3), pages 205-212, October.
    2. Rachael L. Fleurence, 2007. "Setting priorities for research: a practical application of 'payback' and expected value of information," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(12), pages 1345-1357.
    3. Sassi, Franco, 2003. "Setting priorities for the evaluation of health interventions: when theory does not meet practice," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(2), pages 141-154, February.
    4. Elisabeth Fenwick & Karl Claxton & Mark Sculpher, 2008. "The Value of Implementation and the Value of Information: Combined and Uneven Development," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 28(1), pages 21-32, January.
    5. Linda Davies & Mike Drummond & Panos Papanikoloau, 1999. "Prioritising investments in health technology assessment: can we assess the potential value for money?," Working Papers 170chedp, Centre for Health Economics, University of York.
    6. Fleurence, Rachael L. & Torgerson, David J., 2004. "Setting priorities for research," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 1-10, July.
    7. Rachael L. Fleurence, 2007. "Setting priorities for research: a practical application of ‘payback’ and expected value of information," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(12), pages 1345-1357, December.
    8. Lazaros Andronis & Lucinda J. Billingham & Stirling Bryan & Nicholas D. James & Pelham M. Barton, 2016. "A Practical Application of Value of Information and Prospective Payback of Research to Prioritize Evaluative Research," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 36(3), pages 321-334, April.
    9. Karnon, Jonathan, 2002. "Planning the efficient allocation of research funds: an adapted application of a non-parametric Bayesian value of information analysis," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 329-347, September.
    10. Joanna Thorn & Joanna Coast & Lazaros Andronis, 2016. "Interpretation of the Expected Value of Perfect Information and Research Recommendations," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 36(3), pages 285-295, April.
    11. David Cohen & Mirella F Longo & John Williams & Wai‐yee Cheung & Hayley Hutchings & I.T. Russell, 2003. "Estimating the marginal value of ‘better’ research output: ‘designed’ versus ‘routine’ data in randomised controlled trials," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 12(11), pages 959-974, November.
    12. Lazaros Andronis & Pelham M. Barton, 2016. "Adjusting Estimates of the Expected Value of Information for Implementation," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 36(3), pages 296-307, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:60:y:2005:i:5:p:937-947. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.