Capacity Building to Address the 10/90 Gap: Evaluation of a 2015 Global Health and Development Summer Institute in India

Raywat Deonandan

University of Ottawa

Ninety percent of global medical research expenditure is targeted at problems affecting only 10 percent of the world's population (the so-called 10/90 research gap). One strategy to address the gap is capacity building among global health scholars in low-income countries. In 2015, Canadian scholars, in partnership with Indian academics, conducted a series of training workshops in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, targeted to graduate students and junior faculty from across India. This study is a brief evaluation of those workshops, based on participants’ perceptions collected via an end-of-program survey, to refine future interventions aimed at bridging the 10/90 gap. Methods: The 49 participants in the workshop completed a survey consisting of 23 questions: 6 open-ended, 13 multiple-choice, and 4 Likert-type. Questions concerned participant demographics, initial and concluding skills and capacities, and perceived relevance of the workshops’ content. Responses were analyzed using a mixed methods approach. Textual survey responses were analyzed using thematic phenomenological analysis, while quantitative survey data were analyzed using descriptive and bivariate analyses. Results: Participants felt most knowledgeable in identifying ethical issues in research and felt more enthusiasm to build a career in global public health. A majority wanted more instruction in social justice issues, research design, and quantitative analyses. No significant differences in experiences or in desired outcomes were found with respect to gender, geographical location, or education level. These results are instructive for the design of subsequent workshops delivered to a similar audience.

Article link: https://www.asianinstituteofresearch.org/JHMSarchives/capacity-building-to-address-the-10%2F90-gap%3A-evaluation-of-a-2015-global-health-and-development-summer-institute-in-india