DFID’s Work on Health

Living a long and healthy life is essential for every human being to prosper. DFID work across a huge range of health issues from making sure babies have all they need in their first 100 days to working with governments to strengthen their health systems and infrastructures.

By 2015, DFID will:

• help immunise more than 55 million children against preventable diseases
• save the lives of at least 50,000 women in pregnancy and childbirth and 250,000 newborn babies
• enable at least ten million more women to use modern methods of family planning by 2015
• help halve malaria deaths in ten of the worst affected countries.

Read more on the health page of the DFID website.

DFID Health Research

Global policies and national health practices need to be based on the best possible information, and the most robust evidence. Our research investigates new solutions to existing health problems as well as smarter ways of delivering existing solutions to more people. DFID’s extensive experience in health research has produced important results.

Read more on the DFID research page.

Current Research Themes are:

1. Communicable diseases
   Diseases include malaria, TB, HIV, pnuemonia, diarrhoea, neglected tropical diseases (e.g. sleeping sickness). Research falls mainly into two categories: i) research and development to improve and develop drugs/diagnostics/vaccines; and ii) operational research to improve the effectiveness of interventions in the field and to improve the delivery, quality, equity and effectiveness surrounding disease prevention and treatment.
2. Reproductive, maternal and child health
   Including access to family planning and safe abortion, reducing maternal and neonatal mortality and improving nutrition of children.
3. Health systems
   Research to look at strengthening existing health services, mechanisms for financing health services, human resources for health, policies to support health systems, private sector delivery of services and the development of health systems in post conflict and fragile environments.
4. Non-communicable diseases
   Operational research on mental health and nutrition, and some small scale policy-oriented and operational research on tobacco control.

Current Health Research Programme Consortia (RPCs)

HD21: Delivering Effective Health Services

HD22: Delivering Effective Health Services. Health Services for the Future: A Future Health Systems Consortium Programme

HD23: Health Systems and Financing: Research for Building Pro-Poor Health Systems during the Recovery from Conflict (REBUILD)

HD24: Health Systems that Deliver: Health Financing

HD25: Strengthening Evidence for Programming on Unintended Pregnancy (STEP UP)

HD26: Evidence Building and Synthesis Research

HD27: Tackling the Structural Drivers of the HIV Epidemic (STRIVE)

HD28: Programme for Improving Mental health care (PRIME)

HD29: Tackling The Neglected Crisis of Undernutrition (Transform Nutrition RPC)

Research Programme Consortia (RPCs) 2005-2011

Theme 1 – Health systems, economics and financing
HD105: Consortium For Research On Equity And Health Systems (CREHS)
HD106: Future Health Systems: Making Health Systems Work for the Poor

Theme 2 – Communicable diseases: vulnerability, risk and poverty
HD205: Team for Applied Research to Generate Effective Tools and Strategies -TARGETS Consortium
HD206 Communicable Diseases: Vulnerability, Risk and Poverty (COMDIS)

Theme 3 – Reproductive health and HIV
HD3: Research and capacity building in reproductive and sexual health and HIV/AIDS in Developing Countries

Theme 4 – Sexual reproductive health and rights
HD4: Realising Rights: improving sexual and reproductive health for poor and vulnerable populations

Theme 5 – Maternal, neonatal and child health
HD5: Achieving MDGs 4 and 5: Strategic research to develop the evidence base for policy for mother and infant care at facility and community level

Theme 6 – Mental health
HD6: Mental health policy development and implementation in Africa: breaking the cycle of mental ill-health and poverty

Theme 7 – HIV and AIDS
HD11: Evidence for Action: An International Research Consortium to Maximise Benefits & Equity of HIV Treatment & Care Systems.
HD12: Social Context of HIV and AIDS (Addressing the Balance of Burden on AIDS – ABBA)

Theme 8 – Systematic Reviews
HD7: Effective Health Care Research Programme Consortium (EHCRPC)

 

See also DFID’s Education Highlights