Abstract

Evidence based policies in public health are receiving increasing attention and importance for organizing, funding and delivering the health services. The world health organization’s, task force report on health system research states, “millennium development goals will not be attained without new research addressing health system constraints to delivering effective interventions” (World Health Organization, 2005), “research is an essential component of strong health systems for informed and knowledgeable action to improve people's health and accelerate the rate of global, regional and national development” (The Ministerial Summit on Health Research, 2004),evidence-based policy relies on the principle that policy decisions must involve comprehensive analysis of health issues, testing of newer strategies or possible health interventions and mechanism to deliver those health interventions. Health system would be better able to deal with existing challenges if interventions that adopted are based on sound evidences. High quality research has an important part to play in strengthening these interventions and subsequently health systems. Public health agencies should exercise its responsibilities in the development of comprehensive public health policies by promoting the use of the scientific knowledge in decision-making about public health and to serve the public interest. Currently, there is insufficient use of research evidence by decision-makers attempting to improve health systems performances (World Health Organization, 2006; Thomsom et al., 2007). With this background we look at the range of issues related to linking research evidence into health policy and practice, especially in Indian context that can also be true for other low and middle income countries.

Key words: Evidence based policies, public health, health system.