Ideas & Debate

Research ought to guide allocation of resources to health

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To live a healthy, long life, you need to exercise and eat a low-fat and low-salt diet. FILE PHOTO | NMG

There is a debate that never ends: the need for low- and middle-income countries to invest in research over, or equal to budgetary allocations towards healthcare, education, water and sanitation, among others.

Unfortunately, Kenya has become a nation whose policy decisions are driven by ‘evidence’ generated by social media rather than solid scientific evidence. The government, and by extension the citizens, thrive on intervening during crises while the writing was always on the wall yet did little to avert it.

There is a public outcry to clean Nairobi River following an expose in the media. Yet we all know this will be old news, just like the poisonous sugar debacle. The ‘prevention is better than cure’ message continues to linger in matters health, and even road carnage.

To live a healthy, long life, you need to exercise and eat a low-fat and low-salt diet. To avoid the high number of road accidents, we need to abide by the strictly enforced traffic laws. Though we are not studying effects of all this, prevention would have costed the country far less than what it will take to fix.

The list of scientifically proven effective preventive measures in health is long and includes effectiveness of family planning, trained health worker delivery and interventions in mother and newborn health to reduce maternal mortality.

Countries like Rwanda have already discovered and implemented these with major improvements in their maternal and child health statistics that now surpass those of Kenya.

Given our meagre resources, answers to our perennial health problems cannot be in construction of cancer hospitals with PET scans in every county, under the unverified impression that cancer cases are on the rise. This is based on evidence that “many VVIPs lives” are being claimed by cancer.

Let’s not even get into the number of people who die from easily preventable diseases such as malnutrition, diarrhoeal diseases, pneumonia, TB and childbirth.

Shall we invest heavily to treat terminal and chronic illnesses at the expense of preventive and promotive health actions like hand washing, safe fecal disposal, vaccines and consumer product protection?

In my epidemiology studies, one concept stood out for me – before you act, always ask: What is the evidence? Is this intervention cost-effective? This is the best approach especially when resources are limited.

Research provides solutions to address challenges in health care by providing tested evidence. When such evidence is used to improve the health of the people, they become more productive in national development.

Low- and middle-income countries with about 90 percent and 10 percent of global pathology and resources must learn to engage with high income countries on equal partnership to gain from new commercial developments through science and discovery.

There is a need to cultivate a research culture from primary school through high school to university.

Let’s ensure cautionary measures safeguard health and lives of citizens.

The writer is clinical epidemiologist.