BANGKOK, January 15, 2015 – The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) today announced a five-year program to help develop stronger research methods to study the effectiveness of ongoing programs and generate data that can lead to better health policies at the community level across Asia.

Inform Asia: USAID’s Health Research Program will assess the effectiveness of health programs and provide training and mentoring activities with counterpart research organizations and academic institutions. Implemented by RTI International and the Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Center and launched on the margins of the 17th International Symposium on HIV Medicine in Bangkok, the program will help set operational research priorities, identify gaps in resources and support collaboration between researchers and policymakers.

“USAID is pleased to join with our partners to help bring together experts from the health sector to design and conduct rigorous operational research,” said Michael Yates, director of the USAID Regional Development Mission for Asia. “We can learn from each other, especially from local medical professionals, and do a better job with our development programs while improving our ability to address health issues in the region.”

This USAID-supported research activity will look into issues or bottlenecks, such as social, behavioral, economic, or management, that can impede effective health program and policy implementation, especially in communities. The program will support efforts to test new approaches to improve health programming that can bring about improved services and better health for the people.

Malaria, tuberculosis, pandemic influenza, HIV and other emerging infectious diseases pose a significant public health threat throughout Asia, in particular the Greater Mekong Sub-region where these diseases are still prevalent. The program focuses on HIV in Thailand and Laos in the first year and will expand to other countries and also do related research on other diseases, such as hepatitis, influenza, malaria and tuberculosis.

"Inform Asia: USAID’s Health Research Program offers a great opportunity for health research capacity strengthening in the Asia region using the model of country-to-country collaboration,” said  Praphan Phanuphak, director of the Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Center and program co-director.

See photos of the launch event here: https://flic.kr/s/aHsk75s9mQ

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