Enhancing the Capacity of Policy-Makers to Develop Evidence-Informed Policy Brief on Infectious Diseases of Poverty in Nigeria

摘要

Background: The lack of effective use of research evidence in policy-making is a major challenge in most low- and udmiddle-income countries (LMICs). There is need to package research data into effective policy tools that will help udpolicy-makers to make evidence-informed policy regarding infectious diseases of poverty (IDP). The objective of udthis study was to assess the usefulness of training workshops and mentoring to enhance the capacity of Nigerian udhealth policy-makers to develop evidence-informed policy brief on the control of IDP. udMethods:A modified “before and after” intervention study design was used in which outcomes were measured on udthe target participants both before the intervention is implemented and after. A 4-point Likert scale according to the uddegree of adequacy; 1 = “grossly inadequate,” 4 = “very adequate” was employed. The main parameter measured was udparticipants’ perceptions of their own knowledge/understanding. This study was conducted at subnational level and udthe participants were the career health policy-makers drawn from Ebonyi State in the South-Eastern Nigeria. A oneday evidence-to-policy workshop was organized to enhance the participants’ capacity to develop evidence-informed udpolicy brief on IDP in Ebonyi State. Topics covered included collaborative initiative; preparation and use of policy udbriefs; policy dialogue; ethics in health policy-making; and health policy and politics. udResults: The preworkshop mean of knowledge and capacity ranged from 2.49-3.03, while the postworkshop mean udranged from 3.42–3.78 on 4-point scale. The percentage increase in mean of knowledge and capacity at the end udof the workshop ranged from 20.10%–45%. Participants were divided into 3 IDP mentorship groups (malaria, udschistosomiasis, lymphatic filariasis [LF]) and were mentored to identify potential policy options/recommendations udfor control of the diseases for the policy briefs. These policy options were subjected to research evidence synthesis udby each group to identify the options that have the support of research evidence (mostly systematic reviews) from udPubMed, Cochrane database and Google Scholar. After the evidence synthesis, five policy options were selected out udof 13 for malaria, 3 out of 10 for schistosomiasis and 5 out of 11 for LF. udConclusion:The outcome suggests that an evidence-to-policy capacity enhancement workshop combined with a udmentorship programme can improve policy-makers’ capacity for evidence-informed policy-making (EIP).