Bengaluru: It takes an average of 17 years for evidence generated through scientific research to be translated into routine clinical practice and public policy, said Dr Ashoo Grover, Scientist-G and Head of the Division of Delivery and Implementation Research at ICMR, citing data of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and underscoring the need for greater focus on implementation research.
Speaking at the Bringing Evidence into Public Health Policy (EPHP) conference, Dr Grover said, "Given India's diverse population and contexts, the mix of public and private healthcare systems, the gap between policy and practice, and the challenges of scaling innovations, it is important for us to focus on implementation."
Bengaluru-based start-up builds India's most powerful 64-qubit quantum processor 'Kaveri'EPHP, a three-day national conference organised by the Institute of Public Health (IPH), Bengaluru, in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), The George Institute for Global Health (GIGH) India, and the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM), Antwerp, was inaugurated on June 8.
Rithwik Ranjanam Pandey, Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department, Karnataka, highlighted the gap between health policymaking and implementation. "There is a lack of use of evidence in policymaking. We have an elaborate system for recording maternal deaths, and the data are mandatorily captured. Yet, despite having the data, we are often unable to identify the root causes or make policy decisions accordingly," he said.
Dr Sundari Ravindran, Professor at the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology and Governing Board Member of IPH, said public health research should generate stronger evidence from the ground to guide policy and health system reforms. She stressed the need for evidence that reflects real-world conditions so that policy interventions are better grounded in practice.
An expert session on the Commercial Determinants of Health (CDoH) highlighted how external factors - including products, services, corporations and broader global forces - shape health outcomes, often adversely.
Dr Upendra Bhojani, Senior Fellow at the Institute of Public Health, said, "Products such as processed foods, corporations such as food aggregators, and global commercial actors that legally market products such as tobacco are all drivers of CDoH."
He added that surrogate advertising - a marketing strategy used to promote legally restricted products such as alcohol, tobacco or gambling through other permissible products under the same brand name - also plays a significant role in influencing consumer health.