North-South health research collaboration: challenges in institutional interaction.
Soc Sci Med
; 44(8): 1229-38, 1997 Apr.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-9131747
ABSTRACT
North-South health development cooperation often includes research financed largely by external donors. The cooperation varies between projects and programmes with regard to subject area, mix of disciplines involved, research methods, training components and project management arrangements. A variety of problems is encountered, but they are rarely described and discussed in published project reports. We authors conducted a study of a small number of European health researchers collaborating with researchers from the Third World. We focused upon projects involving both biomedical and social science researchers, and apart from a literature review three methods were applied self-administered questionnaires to European researchers, semistructured interviews with five IHCAR researchers, and written summaries by the three authors, each on one recent or ongoing collaborative project of their choice. Most collaborative projects were initiated from the North and are monodisciplinary or partly interdisciplinary in the sense that researchers did independent data collection preceded by joint planning and followed by joint analysis and write-up. There may be disagreements concerning remuneration such as allowances in relation to fieldwork and training. Socio-cultural misunderstanding and conflict was reportedly rare, and no serious problems were reported regarding authorship and publishing. It is concluded that collaborative research is a complex and poorly understood process with considerable potential and worth pursuing despite the problems. Difficulties related to logistics and finance are easily and freely discussed, while there is little evidence that transdisciplinary research is conducted or even discussed. We recommend that published and unpublished reports on collaborative research projects include more detailed accounts of the North-South collaborative arrangements and their management, ethical and financial aspects.
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Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Pesquisa sobre Serviços de Saúde
/
Relações Interinstitucionais
Tipo de estudo:
Qualitative_research
Aspecto:
Ethics
Limite:
Humans
País/Região como assunto:
Europa
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Soc Sci Med
Ano de publicação:
1997
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de afiliação:
Suécia