Research Group for Evidence-Based Public Health, Leibniz-Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology (BIPS) & Institute for Public Health and Nursing Research (IPP), University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany.
Health Sciences Bremen, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany.
Health Res Policy Syst. 2023 Aug 28;21(1):86. doi: 10.1186/s12961-023-01039-w.
Research priority setting (RPS) studies are necessary to close the significant gap between the scientific evidence produced and the evidence stakeholders need. Their findings can make resource allocation in research more efficient. However, no general framework for conducting an RPS study among public health stakeholders exists. RPS studies in public health are rare and no such study has been previously conducted and published in Germany. Therefore, we aimed to investigate which research topics in public health are prioritised by relevant stakeholders in Germany.
Our RPS study consisted of a scoping stage and a Delphi stage each split into two rounds. Firstly, we invited members of the German Public Health Association to gather expert insights during two initial workshops. Next, we defined the relevant stakeholder groups and recruited respondents. Thereafter, we collected research topics and assessment criteria with the respondents in the first Delphi round and aggregated the responses through content analysis. Finally, we asked the respondents to rate the research topics with the assessment criteria in the second Delphi round.
In total, 94 out of the 140 invited public health organisations nominated 230 respondents for the Delphi study of whom almost 90% participated in both Delphi rounds. We compiled a comprehensive list of 76 research topics that were rated and ranked by several assessment criteria. We split the research topics into two types, substantive research topics and methodological-theoretical research topics respectively, to ensure the comparability among the research topics. In both types of research topics-substantive research topics and methodological-theoretical research topics-the respective top five ranked research topics hardly differed between public health researchers and public health practitioners. However, clear differences exist in the priority ranking of many (non-top priority) research topics between the stakeholder groups.
This research demonstrates that it is possible, with limited resources, to prioritise research topics for public health at the national level involving a wide range of pertinent stakeholders. The results can be used by research funding institutions to initiate calls for research projects with an increased relevance for health and/or scientific progress.
研究重点制定（RPS）研究对于缩小科学证据与利益相关者所需证据之间的巨大差距至关重要。其研究结果可以使研究资源分配更加高效。然而，目前尚未有针对公共卫生利益相关者的 RPS 研究的通用框架。公共卫生领域的 RPS 研究很少，在德国也从未进行过此类研究并发表过相关研究。因此，我们旨在调查德国相关利益相关者优先考虑的公共卫生研究课题。
我们的 RPS 研究由范围界定阶段和德尔菲阶段组成，每个阶段又分为两轮。首先，我们邀请德国公共卫生协会的成员参加了两个初始研讨会，以收集专家意见。接下来，我们确定了相关的利益相关者群体并招募了受访者。然后，我们在第一轮德尔菲研究中收集了研究课题和评估标准，并通过内容分析汇总了回复。最后，我们请受访者在第二轮德尔菲研究中使用评估标准对研究课题进行评分。
共有 140 个受邀公共卫生组织中的 94 个提名了 230 名德尔菲研究的受访者，其中近 90%的受访者参加了两轮德尔菲研究。我们编制了一份综合清单，其中包含 76 项研究课题，这些课题根据多个评估标准进行了评分和排名。我们将研究课题分为实质性研究课题和方法论理论研究课题两种类型，以确保研究课题之间的可比性。在实质性研究课题和方法论理论研究课题这两种类型中，各自排名前五的研究课题在公共卫生研究人员和公共卫生从业者之间几乎没有差异。然而，利益相关者群体之间在许多（非优先）研究课题的优先级排序上存在明显差异。
本研究表明，在资源有限的情况下，有可能在全国范围内涉及广泛的相关利益相关者的情况下，为公共卫生确定研究课题的优先顺序。研究结果可被研究资助机构用于发起呼吁，以开展与健康和/或科学进步更相关的研究项目。
