Abstract
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 103916 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Research Policy |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Apr 2020 |
JEL classifications
- o32 - Management of Technological Innovation and R&D
Keywords
- Disease burden
- Research priorities
- Science policy, Africa, Research funding
- Economic and social effects
- Finance
- Disease burdens
- International researches
- Local populations
- Medical research
- Research funding
- Research networks
- Sub-saharan africa
- Health
- HEALTH RESEARCH
- RESEARCH-AND-DEVELOPMENT
- COVERAGE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- POLICY
- WEB
- SCOPUS
- SCIENCE
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In: Research Policy, Vol. 49, No. 3, 103916, 04.2020.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review
TY - JOUR
T1 - Medical research versus disease burden in Africa
AU - Confraria, Hugo
AU - Wang, L.
N1 - Correspondence Address: Confraria, H.; SPRU - Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex Business SchoolUnited Kingdom; email: h.confraria@sussex.ac.uk Funding details: European Commission, EU Funding details: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, BMGF Funding details: Wellcome Trust, WT Funding details: National Institutes of Health, NIH Funding text 1: We are also interested to know if each funder (or group of funders) supports research in specific diseases. and highlight the top 20 research funders in Africa by disease between 2011 and 2015. In , we analyse the research specialisation of each funder group in each African region by disease. All three tables are ordered by the number of publications in each disease in Africa. Table 1 Table 2 Table 1 , we calculated the percentage of publications supported by a specific funder in a specific disease in relation to the total amount of publications supported by that funder in Africa. In Table 2 , we divide the same numerator by the total amount of publications in a specific disease in Africa, to analyse the importance of each funder in each disease. Finally, in Table 3 One key finding in Table 1 and 2 is that “Parasitic and vector diseases”, “HIV/AIDS” and “Tuberculosis” are a priority for most top20 funders. These results are in line with Chapman et al. (2017) that also found that three diseases – HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis – collectively received more than two-thirds ($2247 m, 70%) of all global funding for neglected disease R&D in 2016. The only funders that are not so biased towards these three diseases are the National Research Council (in South Africa), Medical Research Council (in South Africa), Tunisian Government, GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer. These are all African funders and corporations that may have different priorities than international organisations. It is, however, important to notice the absence of Public African funders from Eastern Africa and West & Central Africa. In these regions, the importance of international funders such as the NIH, Wellcome Trust, Gates Foundation and the EU to fund medical research is very high. Interestingly, Gates Foundation funds more than 10% of African research on “neonatal conditions” which is the disease with the highest absolute disease burden in Eastern Africa and West & Central Africa. It has been argued that Gates Foundation investment has tried to balance the public sector focus on basic research ( Chapman et al., 2017 ). According to G-finder data, it has provided 55% of all funding to neglected diseases in the world to product development partnerships and 47% of all funding for platform technologies between 2007 and 2016. In Table 3 , we combine all this information in a matrix that displays the share of medical research funded by each group of funders in each African region. This is calculated by dividing the number of publications funded by a specific funder group in a disease in a region, by the total number of publications funded by that funder group in that region. We also show the total share of publications and DALYs in each region by disease to compare the research specialisation of each funder group with the research priorities and disease burden in each region. In Northern Africa, we can observe that there are some low burden diseases like “intestinal nematode”, “tuberculosis” and “parasitic and vector diseases” that receive a relatively high amount of funding from public African, public non-African and philanthropic groups. Overall, public non-African and philanthropic groups fund similar diseases, and in “Eastern Africa”, “Southern Africa” and “West & Central Africa” they are mostly focused on medical research in “parasitic and vector diseases”, “tuberculosis” and “HIV/AIDS”. The share of total funding from philanthropic and public non-African institutions to “parasitic and vector diseases” is particularly high in “West & Central Africa” and “Eastern Africa”. It represents more than 40% of the total funding of these institutions in both regions. “Parasitic and vector diseases” group includes diseases such as malaria, dengue, trachoma, yellow fever, rabies, chagas disease, amongst others. Malaria is by far the condition that leads to higher disease burden in this category. According to Head et al. (2017) , global research funding for malaria in sub-Saharan Africa is mostly allocated to Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Malawi, Ghana, and Nigeria. These are locations with a track record of success in similar projects where it is perceived that investments will make a positive difference and where any research will be feasible. 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PY - 2020/4
Y1 - 2020/4
N2 - Africa is a continent facing severe, urgent, and often unique health challenges. At the same time, in most African countries, national research funding is very limited and research systems are usually dependant on international research funding and collaboration. Therefore, in this context, there are worries that foreign partners will dominate medical research agendas, which may take research away from being relevant to specific local health needs. In this article, we investigate whether the distribution of medical research priorities and investment in medical research, across diseases in Africa, is related to the disease burden of local populations between 2006 and 2015. Our results show that, although African medical research capacity is still very weak and greatly dependant on public non-African and philanthropic funders, medical research specialisation in sub-Saharan Africa is generally associated with its disease burden.
AB - Africa is a continent facing severe, urgent, and often unique health challenges. At the same time, in most African countries, national research funding is very limited and research systems are usually dependant on international research funding and collaboration. Therefore, in this context, there are worries that foreign partners will dominate medical research agendas, which may take research away from being relevant to specific local health needs. In this article, we investigate whether the distribution of medical research priorities and investment in medical research, across diseases in Africa, is related to the disease burden of local populations between 2006 and 2015. Our results show that, although African medical research capacity is still very weak and greatly dependant on public non-African and philanthropic funders, medical research specialisation in sub-Saharan Africa is generally associated with its disease burden.
KW - Disease burden
KW - Research priorities
KW - Science policy, Africa, Research funding
KW - Economic and social effects
KW - Finance
KW - Disease burdens
KW - International researches
KW - Local populations
KW - Medical research
KW - Research funding
KW - Research networks
KW - Sub-saharan africa
KW - Health
KW - HEALTH RESEARCH
KW - RESEARCH-AND-DEVELOPMENT
KW - COVERAGE
KW - ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
KW - POLICY
KW - WEB
KW - SCOPUS
KW - SCIENCE
U2 - 10.1016/j.respol.2019.103916
DO - 10.1016/j.respol.2019.103916
M3 - Article
SN - 0048-7333
VL - 49
JO - Research Policy
JF - Research Policy
IS - 3
M1 - 103916
ER -