How can we best advance the collective health of the United States, while monitoring our progress?

Many international statements have urged researchers, policy-makers and health care providers to collaborate in efforts to bridge the gaps between research, policy and practice in low- and middle-income countries. We surveyed researchers in 10 countries about their involvement in such efforts.

Gaps continue to exist between research-based evidence and clinical practice. We surveyed health care pro viders in 10 low- and middle-income countries about their use of research-based evidence and examined factors that may facilitate or impede such use.

National and international health policies tend to equate the

Why has a need of a National Health Research Policy arisen now? Though history of health research in India goes beyond 1911, when the Indian Research Fund Association, the precursor of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) was established, the country did not have a policy to guide research until the ICMR formulated its Health Research Policy in 2007.

Obamacare is here. As he affixed his signature to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on 23 March 2010, President Obama signed into law what many observers view as one of the most important changes to the American healthcare system since 1965. If all goes as planned, by 2019 (when the law becomes fully operational), the USA will have largely erased a major blot on its healthcare system.

The policy of levying charges on people seeking healthcare, which requires people to pay before receiving care, has been a contentious issue among health policy-makers and people working in the health sector. The impact of user charges on the health of a nation merits serious consideration.

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