The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has funded a research centre at the University of Washington in Seattle to help guide international policy making by providing high quality data and analysis of health needs and outcomes. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which received a grant of $105m (£53m; €80m) from the foundation, will also assess the performance of health programmes around the world.
“Health policy must be based on evidence, not speculation,” said Tachi Yamada, president of the foundation's global health programme.
“There has been a huge increase in resources for global health in recent years,” Dr Yamada said, “and it's essential to evaluate the impact of these investments. With high quality data we can ensure resources go where they are needed most and dramatically improve healthcare delivery.”
The institute's brief is to provide “high quality and timely information on health so that policy makers, researchers, donors, practitioners, local decision makers, and others can better allocate limited resources to achieve optimal results.”
It will be directed by Christopher Murray, who was previously director of the Harvard University Initiative for Global Health and is a former senior official at the World Health Organization.
“Chris Murray is the ideal leader for the institute,” said Paul Ramsey, dean of the university's School of Medicine. “He is one of the foremost experts on health evaluation, and his pioneering research has had a wide ranging impact.”
“This was an idea whose time had come,” Dr Murray said. By attracting a core of talented researchers and collaborating with key actors and institutions, the institute intends to “build the needed base of objective evidence about what works and what does not work to improve health conditions and health systems performance,” he said. This evidence base would be “freely and readily available in the public domain,” because “better health information can be expected to lead to more knowledgeable decision making and higher achievements in health.”
“Strengthening global, regional, and country work on information and evidence is one of our priorities,” said WHO's director general, Margaret Chan. “I hope the newly announced institute will become an important partner in meeting these goals.”
When it is fully operational the institute will consist of more than 100 researchers and other staff. It will also establish an international network of collaborating research centres and provide fellowships to train junior researchers.
Work will focus on three main areas: collecting and analysing data on health indicators and trends; evaluating the results and effectiveness of health programmes; and making health data and information freely available to decision makers, researchers, and the public.
“We hope to set the gold standard for scientifically rigorous evaluation in health,” said Dr Murray. “Global health spending is on the rise, yet too often there are gaps in information about where these funds can have the greatest impact.”