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Scientific Advisory Committees at the World Health Organization: A Qualitative Study of How Their Design Affects Quality, Relevance, and Legitimacy

Governments and international organizations frequently convene scientific advisory committees (SACs) to support decision‐making with scientific advice. In this study, thematic analysis of interviews with 35 senior WHO staff identified five main themes characterizing WHO's experience with design...

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Autores principales: Gopinathan, Unni, Hoffman, Steven J., Ottersen, Trygve
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6175305/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30333925
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/gch2.201700074
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author Gopinathan, Unni
Hoffman, Steven J.
Ottersen, Trygve
author_facet Gopinathan, Unni
Hoffman, Steven J.
Ottersen, Trygve
author_sort Gopinathan, Unni
collection PubMed
description Governments and international organizations frequently convene scientific advisory committees (SACs) to support decision‐making with scientific advice. In this study, thematic analysis of interviews with 35 senior WHO staff identified five main themes characterizing WHO's experience with designing SACs to ensure quality, relevance, and legitimacy of scientific advice. First, in addition to technical matters, SACs are established to serve broader strategic objectives, including consensus building to promote high‐level political messages. Second, for SACs to be fully independent, they must have autonomy from the institutions convening or funding them, from the institutions from where SAC members are recruited, and from the institutions to whom the advice is directed. Third, since choices affecting quality, relevance, and legitimacy are closely linked, designing SACs often require trade‐offs among these three attributes. Fourth, staff supporting SACs need to balance between safeguarding SACs from external influence and being receptive to the external political environment. Fifth, the design of SACs need to balance the involvement of stakeholders with the power to act on recommendations against the need to protect the independence and integrity of the scientific process. Overall, this study highlights key choices conveners of SACs must make when seeking to promote quality, relevance, and legitimacy of scientific advice.
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spelling pubmed-61753052018-10-15 Scientific Advisory Committees at the World Health Organization: A Qualitative Study of How Their Design Affects Quality, Relevance, and Legitimacy Gopinathan, Unni Hoffman, Steven J. Ottersen, Trygve Glob Chall Full Papers Governments and international organizations frequently convene scientific advisory committees (SACs) to support decision‐making with scientific advice. In this study, thematic analysis of interviews with 35 senior WHO staff identified five main themes characterizing WHO's experience with designing SACs to ensure quality, relevance, and legitimacy of scientific advice. First, in addition to technical matters, SACs are established to serve broader strategic objectives, including consensus building to promote high‐level political messages. Second, for SACs to be fully independent, they must have autonomy from the institutions convening or funding them, from the institutions from where SAC members are recruited, and from the institutions to whom the advice is directed. Third, since choices affecting quality, relevance, and legitimacy are closely linked, designing SACs often require trade‐offs among these three attributes. Fourth, staff supporting SACs need to balance between safeguarding SACs from external influence and being receptive to the external political environment. Fifth, the design of SACs need to balance the involvement of stakeholders with the power to act on recommendations against the need to protect the independence and integrity of the scientific process. Overall, this study highlights key choices conveners of SACs must make when seeking to promote quality, relevance, and legitimacy of scientific advice. John Wiley and Sons Inc. 2018-08-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6175305/ /pubmed/30333925 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/gch2.201700074 Text en © 2018 The Authors. Published by WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim This is an open access article under the terms of the http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Full Papers
Gopinathan, Unni
Hoffman, Steven J.
Ottersen, Trygve
Scientific Advisory Committees at the World Health Organization: A Qualitative Study of How Their Design Affects Quality, Relevance, and Legitimacy
title Scientific Advisory Committees at the World Health Organization: A Qualitative Study of How Their Design Affects Quality, Relevance, and Legitimacy
title_full Scientific Advisory Committees at the World Health Organization: A Qualitative Study of How Their Design Affects Quality, Relevance, and Legitimacy
title_fullStr Scientific Advisory Committees at the World Health Organization: A Qualitative Study of How Their Design Affects Quality, Relevance, and Legitimacy
title_full_unstemmed Scientific Advisory Committees at the World Health Organization: A Qualitative Study of How Their Design Affects Quality, Relevance, and Legitimacy
title_short Scientific Advisory Committees at the World Health Organization: A Qualitative Study of How Their Design Affects Quality, Relevance, and Legitimacy
title_sort scientific advisory committees at the world health organization: a qualitative study of how their design affects quality, relevance, and legitimacy
topic Full Papers
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6175305/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30333925
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/gch2.201700074
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