An assessment of 392 publications from 72 countries generated by the Structured Operational Research and Training Initiative (SORT IT) revealed that 88% of them were of excellent reporting quality, which encourages their use for decision-making in public health.
Operational research is vital to improve the quality and performance of health care delivery, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Aimed at building the science of solutions in public health, it has a key role in achieving universal health coverage.
Operational research is often observational in nature and helps address real-world questions that cannot be answered by randomized controlled trials. This includes how to deliver new tests, vaccines and drugs that can save lives during outbreaks. The World Health Organization (WHO) increasingly relies on such evidence for informing its implementation guidelines.
SORT IT continues to generate evidence from close to the supply and demand of health services. Such evidence from the front-lines of public health is vital in guiding efforts towards achieving universal health coverage.
Despite the importance of observational studies, they are often inadequately or incompletely reported, making it difficult to assess their validity and generalizability and to judge whether they can be included in evidence synthesis and systematic reviews that guide policy and practice change.
A new study published in the Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease journal analysed 392 publications – the largest dataset of observational studies ever assessed for quality of reporting – and included 72 countries, 50 journals and 24 publication domains. Almost nine in ten publications were graded as being of excellent reporting quality according to the Structured Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) checklist. With this checklist, studies can be assessed for completeness of reporting against a gold standard. Furthermore, LMIC first authorship was present in 90% of publications, and a female first author in about half of all publications.
This comprehensive assessment provides reassurance of the high quality of the publications generated by the SORT IT global partnership, which can be used for informed decision-making in public health and for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
The assessed publications were generated by the Structured Operational Research and Training Initiative (SORT IT), a global partnership-based initiative that is coordinated by TDR and has over 50 implementing partners, including disease control programmes, nongovernmental organizations and academia. SORT IT builds sustainable capacity to conduct operational research according to country priorities and encourages the use of the generated evidence for decision-making to improve public health.
This study showcases the important role SORT IT is playing in generating high-quality evidence while ensuring gender equity and collaborative partnerships.
For more information, please contact Dr Rony Zachariah.