OBJECTIVE Health impact assessment (HIA) has been proposed as one mechanism that can inform decision-making by public policy-makers. However, HIA methodology has been criticized for a lack of rigour in its use of evidence. The aim of this work was to formulate, develop and test a practical guide to reviewing publicly available evidence for use in HIA. The term evidence includes all scientific a...

BACKGROUND Researchers are increasingly required to describe the impact of their work, e.g. in grant proposals, project reports, press releases and research assessment exercises. Specialised impact assessment studies can be difficult to replicate and may require resources and skills not available to individual researchers. Researchers are often hard-pressed to identify and describe research imp...

Background Between 1990 and 2015, under-5 mortality rate (U5MR) declined by 53%, from an estimated rate of 91 deaths per 1000 live births to 43, globally. The aim of this study was to determine the share of health research systems in this decrease alongside other influential factors.   Methods We used random effect regression models including the ‘random intercept’ and ‘random intercept and ran...

I am delighted to announce that Bone & Joint Research (BJR), which was only established in 2012, has now received its first impact factor, which is 1.640. This is the first opportunity that the BJR has had to get an impact factor, as a journal must be registered in PubMed for at least three years. The journal impact factor is an independent measure calculated by Thomson Reuters in Philadelphia,...

collaboration is a central aspect of research, with variable impact on research output and quality. its assessment is commonly based on citation count, but this is an inadequate measure in biomedical research. the aim of this preliminary study is to determine the impact of collaboration at three levels on the quality of dental therapy research using a valid and reliable instrument. ninety-nine ...