INDEPTH Research to Policy

“To facilitate the translation of INDEPTH findings to maximize impact on policy and practice,” is the third strategic objective of INDEPTH. The Policy INDEPTH Strategic Group was formed to help the Secretariat to coordinate and spearhead policy engagement activities. 

INDEPTH strives to ensure that the research evidence generated by the Network is tailored as appropriate and widely disseminated to different audiences beyond researchers and reaches decision makers at various levels to reduce the critical gap between research findings and action.  The goal is to maintain an ongoing dialogue with key stakeholders at local, national, regional and international levels to ensure that our work is known, understood and used by those who develop policies and programmes.

In line with its quest to reduce the critical gap between research findings and the formulation of policy and programmes resulting from those findings, the INDEPTH Network revived its Research to Policy Working Group in March 2014.

According to the Executive Director of the INDEPTH Network, Prof Osman Sankoh, the Network had raised the profile of Health and Demographic Surveillance Systems (HDSSs) as a source of health and development research and information, but more could be done to facilitate translation of findings into policy and practice.

“INDEPTH was seeking to ensure an effective dialogue across its member centres and also between them and local, national, regional and global health policy makers. Such a dialogue should be about how the results of INDEPTH studies can improve health policies and which core questions that policy makers have that only INDEPTH’s unique data and research can address.”

In order to ensure that we are effectively pursuing this objective and reaching out to ALL MEMBERS, the INDEPTH Secretariat in 2015 upgraded the Policy Engagement Working Group, which had only 8 members   into a Strategic Group.