Setting health research priorities using the CHNRI method: I. Involving funders

In 2007 and 2008, the World Health Organization's Department for Child and Adolescent Health and Development (later renamed as WHO MNCAH – Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health) commissioned five large exercises to define research priorities related to the five major causes of child deaths for the period up to the year 2015. The exercises were based on the CHNRI (Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative) method, which was just being introduced at the time [1,2]. The selected causes were childhood pneumonia, diarrhoea, birth asphyxia, neonatal infections and preterm birth/low birth weight [3–7]. The context for those exercises was clearly defined: to identify research that could help reduce mortality in children under 5 years of age in low and middle income countries by the year 2015. The criteria used in all five exercises were the “standard” CHNRI criteria: (i) answerability of the research question; (ii) likelihood of the effectiveness of the resulting intervention; (iii) deliverability (with affordability and sustainability); (iv) potential to reduce disease burden; and (v) effect on equity [3–7].