Cargando…
Health technology assessment and priority setting for universal health coverage: a qualitative study of stakeholders’ capacity, needs, policy areas of demand and perspectives in Nigeria
INTRODUCTION: Health technology assessment (HTA) is an effective tool to support priority setting and generate evidence for decision making especially en route to achieving universal health coverage (UHC). We assessed the capacity needs, policy areas of demand, and perspectives of key stakeholders f...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
BioMed Central
2020
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7346669/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32641066 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-00583-2 |
_version_ | 1783556443899691008 |
---|---|
author | Uzochukwu, Benjamin S. C. Okeke, Chinyere O’Brien, Niki Ruiz, Francis Sombie, Issiaka Hollingworth, Samantha |
author_facet | Uzochukwu, Benjamin S. C. Okeke, Chinyere O’Brien, Niki Ruiz, Francis Sombie, Issiaka Hollingworth, Samantha |
author_sort | Uzochukwu, Benjamin S. C. |
collection | PubMed |
description | INTRODUCTION: Health technology assessment (HTA) is an effective tool to support priority setting and generate evidence for decision making especially en route to achieving universal health coverage (UHC). We assessed the capacity needs, policy areas of demand, and perspectives of key stakeholders for evidence-informed decision making in Nigeria where HTA is still new. METHODS: We surveyed 31 participants including decision makers, policy makers, academic researchers, civil society organizations, community-based organizations, development partners, health professional organizations. We revised an existing survey to qualitatively examine the need, policy areas of demand, and perspectives of stakeholders on HTA. We then analyzed responses and explored key themes. RESULTS: Most respondents were associated with organizations that generated or facilitated health services research. Research institutes highlighted their ability to provide expertise and skills for HTA research but some respondents noted a lack of human capacity for HTA. HTA was considered an important and valuable priority-setting tool with a key role in the design of health benefits packages, clinical guideline development, and service improvement. Public health programs, medicines and vaccines were the three main technology types that would especially benefit from the application of HTA. The perceived availability and accessibility of suitable local data to support HTA varied widely but was mostly considered inadequate and limited. Respondents needed evidence on health system financing, health service provision, burden of disease and noted a need for training support in research methodology, HTA and data management. CONCLUSION: The use of HTA by policymakers and communities in Nigeria is very limited mainly due to inadequate and insufficient capacity to produce and use HTA. Developing sustainable and institutionalized HTA systems requires in-country expertise and active participation from a range of stakeholders. Stakeholder participation in identifying HTA topics and conducting relevant research will enhance the use of HTA evidence produced for decision making. Therefore, the identified training needs for HTA and possible research topics should be considered a priority in establishing HTA for evidence-informed policy making for achieving UHC particularly among the most vulnerable people in Nigeria. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7346669 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-73466692020-07-14 Health technology assessment and priority setting for universal health coverage: a qualitative study of stakeholders’ capacity, needs, policy areas of demand and perspectives in Nigeria Uzochukwu, Benjamin S. C. Okeke, Chinyere O’Brien, Niki Ruiz, Francis Sombie, Issiaka Hollingworth, Samantha Global Health Research INTRODUCTION: Health technology assessment (HTA) is an effective tool to support priority setting and generate evidence for decision making especially en route to achieving universal health coverage (UHC). We assessed the capacity needs, policy areas of demand, and perspectives of key stakeholders for evidence-informed decision making in Nigeria where HTA is still new. METHODS: We surveyed 31 participants including decision makers, policy makers, academic researchers, civil society organizations, community-based organizations, development partners, health professional organizations. We revised an existing survey to qualitatively examine the need, policy areas of demand, and perspectives of stakeholders on HTA. We then analyzed responses and explored key themes. RESULTS: Most respondents were associated with organizations that generated or facilitated health services research. Research institutes highlighted their ability to provide expertise and skills for HTA research but some respondents noted a lack of human capacity for HTA. HTA was considered an important and valuable priority-setting tool with a key role in the design of health benefits packages, clinical guideline development, and service improvement. Public health programs, medicines and vaccines were the three main technology types that would especially benefit from the application of HTA. The perceived availability and accessibility of suitable local data to support HTA varied widely but was mostly considered inadequate and limited. Respondents needed evidence on health system financing, health service provision, burden of disease and noted a need for training support in research methodology, HTA and data management. CONCLUSION: The use of HTA by policymakers and communities in Nigeria is very limited mainly due to inadequate and insufficient capacity to produce and use HTA. Developing sustainable and institutionalized HTA systems requires in-country expertise and active participation from a range of stakeholders. Stakeholder participation in identifying HTA topics and conducting relevant research will enhance the use of HTA evidence produced for decision making. Therefore, the identified training needs for HTA and possible research topics should be considered a priority in establishing HTA for evidence-informed policy making for achieving UHC particularly among the most vulnerable people in Nigeria. BioMed Central 2020-07-08 /pmc/articles/PMC7346669/ /pubmed/32641066 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-00583-2 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
spellingShingle | Research Uzochukwu, Benjamin S. C. Okeke, Chinyere O’Brien, Niki Ruiz, Francis Sombie, Issiaka Hollingworth, Samantha Health technology assessment and priority setting for universal health coverage: a qualitative study of stakeholders’ capacity, needs, policy areas of demand and perspectives in Nigeria |
title | Health technology assessment and priority setting for universal health coverage: a qualitative study of stakeholders’ capacity, needs, policy areas of demand and perspectives in Nigeria |
title_full | Health technology assessment and priority setting for universal health coverage: a qualitative study of stakeholders’ capacity, needs, policy areas of demand and perspectives in Nigeria |
title_fullStr | Health technology assessment and priority setting for universal health coverage: a qualitative study of stakeholders’ capacity, needs, policy areas of demand and perspectives in Nigeria |
title_full_unstemmed | Health technology assessment and priority setting for universal health coverage: a qualitative study of stakeholders’ capacity, needs, policy areas of demand and perspectives in Nigeria |
title_short | Health technology assessment and priority setting for universal health coverage: a qualitative study of stakeholders’ capacity, needs, policy areas of demand and perspectives in Nigeria |
title_sort | health technology assessment and priority setting for universal health coverage: a qualitative study of stakeholders’ capacity, needs, policy areas of demand and perspectives in nigeria |
topic | Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7346669/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32641066 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-00583-2 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT uzochukwubenjaminsc healthtechnologyassessmentandprioritysettingforuniversalhealthcoverageaqualitativestudyofstakeholderscapacityneedspolicyareasofdemandandperspectivesinnigeria AT okekechinyere healthtechnologyassessmentandprioritysettingforuniversalhealthcoverageaqualitativestudyofstakeholderscapacityneedspolicyareasofdemandandperspectivesinnigeria AT obrienniki healthtechnologyassessmentandprioritysettingforuniversalhealthcoverageaqualitativestudyofstakeholderscapacityneedspolicyareasofdemandandperspectivesinnigeria AT ruizfrancis healthtechnologyassessmentandprioritysettingforuniversalhealthcoverageaqualitativestudyofstakeholderscapacityneedspolicyareasofdemandandperspectivesinnigeria AT sombieissiaka healthtechnologyassessmentandprioritysettingforuniversalhealthcoverageaqualitativestudyofstakeholderscapacityneedspolicyareasofdemandandperspectivesinnigeria AT hollingworthsamantha healthtechnologyassessmentandprioritysettingforuniversalhealthcoverageaqualitativestudyofstakeholderscapacityneedspolicyareasofdemandandperspectivesinnigeria |