Research Equity: A Capacity Building Workshop of Research Methodology for Medical Health Professionals

Research is a cornerstone for knowledge generation, which in turns requires capacity building for its tools and techniques. Despite having a vast infrastructure in India the research in medical science has been carried out in limited and focused institutions. In order to build the capacity in carrying out research activities a five-day planning workshop was conducted at state run medical college. Total 22 medical faculty members participated in the workshop with average public health experience of 12 years (range: 5–25 years). The knowledge was assessed objectively by multiple-choice questionnaire. The mean score increased from 6.7 to 7.9 from pre- to posttest. About seventy-percent participants showed improvement, whereas 21.0% showed deterioration in the knowledge and the rest showed the same score. Apart from knowledge skills also showed improvement as total 12 research projects were generated and eight were approved for funding by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), New Delhi. It can be concluded that a supportive environment for research can be built with the technical assistance. 1. Introduction Medical science research means generation of new valid knowledge in science. Validity of knowledge depends upon basic scientifically proven methods and their effective application in the field of medical science. Medicine as a scientific discipline has evolved over the ages with the constant generation, testing, and application of scientific knowledge. It helped the policy makers to formulate the healthy public health policy and to shape the national health care programs in order to improve the health of people. In year 1977, the World Health Organization (WHO) had foresighted and brought the commitment among all countries across the globe to achieve “Health for All” [1]. Research is a cornerstone for guided, constant, and coordinated commitment. Focus on health research was there for centuries but global impetus was provided through the formulation of commission on health research and development, summit in Mexico, and thereafter 58th assembly issued a joint statement that urged the members “to establish or strengthen the mechanism to transfer knowledge in support of evidence base public health, health care delivery system, and evidence based health related policies.” In 2007, 62nd world health assembly passed and adopted one of the resolution is for roles and responsibilities of WHO (WHO 62/12) in the field of research [2]. Thereafter, in 2008, the need to continue to build the progress made since Mexico summit was stressed upon at Bomako [3].