Call for Abstracts! the Ninth National Summit of Health Population and Scientists in Nepal

The Nepal Health Research Council (NHRC) is hosting the Ninth National Summit of Health Population and Scientists in Nepal, with the theme “Research for Health: Translating Evidence and Innovation into Actions”.

The NHRC is an apex body of the Government of Nepal (GoN) entrusted with regulating, coordinating, and promoting high quality health and population research in Nepal. Since 2015, the NHRC has hosted annual summits of health and population scientists to generate new knowledge through rigorous research and promote the  use of evidence in decision making by fostering dialogue between researchers, programme designer, implementers and policymakers.

The National Health Policy 2019 of Nepal has put emphasis on health research and its utilization. The utilization of knowledge derived from population and health research has underpinned significant gains in health and economic development of the country.  Knowledge derived from any research may be of little value unless it is put into practice and inform policy as appropriate. Although a large number of studies have been carried in different population and health related issues in Nepal, the use of evidences from such studies in informing policy, programme and practice  has not been fully explored and documented There is a need to assess the country level efforts (through national summit) to link research to action and to develop appropriate mechanisms to strengthen assessing, appraising and translating evidence to inform practice and policy,  and documenting them.

Large numbers of researches are carried with the objective of expanding the horizon of understanding different issues in population and health nationwide.  The policy makers on the other side, often formulate policy with very limited consideration of research evidences, and have few active connections with either independent researchers or the research community. There is an inadequate “evidence-based decision-making culture” in government decision making process which demands the accurate, detailed, valid and reliable information or findings consistently and continuously. So, there is a need of policy-informed research initiatives and evidence-informed policy making which warrants the need to understand various aspects in translating research evidences and information into action through national summit.

Effective knowledge transfer is not a “one off” event, rather it is a powerful and continuous process in which knowledge accumulates and influences thinking over time. The ability to sustain this process and a focus on human interactions is essential. Strengthening channels of communications between researchers and policymakers at the national level is the most practical way to translate evidence and information into action.

The global environmental change including climate change, demographic change, urbanization and other emerging health issues such as non-communicable diseases, COVID-19 pandemic and frequent outbreak of diseases such as cholera, dengue and measles  has highlighted the critical importance of generating contextually tailored evidence through high-quality  research  for health and their use in decision making thereby strengthening health systems resilience to tackle future pandemics, shocks and stressors to the system. The Ninth National Summit with the theme “Research for Health: Translating Evidence and Innovation into Actions” will be a continuum of the previous summits as an annual gathering of researchers, academicians, scientists, practitioners, and policymakers to exchange ideas and health research evidence on national health issues and priorities focusing translation of evidence and innovations into actions. Research for health is a global endeavor, and it may play a unique role to play in ensuring that these efforts can help improve health for all. This year’s national summit seeks to facilitate discussion on how research for health, evidence synthesis and innovations can be translated to evidence informed decision making and practice.

This year’s national summit of health and population scientists aims to bring health systems researchers, practitioners, program designers and policymakers together to discuss new evidences on population and health research, learn  from past emergencies including the COVID-19 pandemic, outbreak of dengue, cholera, measles  and utilize these evidences and lessons into action to improve and transform Nepal’s health system to better prepare it for public health emergencies and future pandemics.

Objectives

• To provide a unified platform for health and population scientists, policymakers, researchers, academicians, and practitioners to share research evidence on national health priorities
• To foster networking and dialogue exchange between policymakers and health and population experts
• To discuss research for health and its importance to inform practices and polices
• To encourage young researchers and experts to collaborate, innovate and promote research on current health priority areas in Nepal
• To synthesize evidence for contributing to formulate health sector strategic plan, annual work plan and resource allocations

Thematic areas (Sub-themes)

1. Health System and Policy

• Resilient Health Care Delivery System (Health Services, including access to care and its quality)
• Health Workforce (Human Resources for Health)
• Universal Health Coverage
• Health Policy, Management, Leadership, Governance (Stewardship) and policy evidence nexus
• Health Information Technology in Health Service and Research
• Equity and Efficiency in Health System
• Health Economics and Healthcare Financing
• Human resource for health
• Public Private Partnership (PPP)
• Burden of diseases including vital statistics
• Evidence synthesis

2. Public (Population) Health

• Health communication, education and health behavior
• Sexual Reproductive Maternal Neonatal, Child and Adolescent Health
• Gender, Equity and Justice
• Population and Population Dynamics (fertility, mortality and migration)
• Nutrition, Food Safety and Security
• Disabilities
• Public Health Surveillance (i.e. Cancer, Vector-borne diseases etc.)
• Other (Miscellaneous)

3. Public health emergencies

• COVID-19 pandemic related public health and clinical studies
• Outbreak of dengue, cholera, measles and lessons learnt
• Other public health emergencies, including public health response and preparedness to disease outbreaks, natural disasters and other emergencies
• Clinical and Public Health Research
• Health in altitude including mountain medicine (Physiological changes in different altitudes including mountain medicine)
• Non-Communicable Diseases
• Mental Health, Substance Abuse, Dementia and Suicide prevention
• Geriatric health
• Ayurveda & Other Traditional and Complementary Medicine
• Communicable Diseases (Infectious & Tropical Diseases including neglected tropical diseases) from one health perspective
• Emergency, Trauma and Critical care (including Injuries and Accidents)
• Antimicrobial resistance (AMR)
• Inherited diseases (including thalassemia, sickle cell disorder, hemophilia, autism)
• Other (Miscellaneous)
• One Health and Global Health
• Animal studies impacting human health (One Health concept)
• Wider determinants of health (including Social Determinants of Health)

4. Biomedical and Translational Research

• Essential medical products including pharmaceutical products, pharmacovigilance and rational use of drugs
• Biomedical research
• Artificial intelligence
• Innovation in health research
• Implementation and operational research

5. Networking, collaboration and partnership in research for health

• Health research in the federal context
• Clinical trials in Nepal
• Drug discovery and partnership in research
• Alternative medicine, disaster/emergency preparedness/migration health/
• Digital health
• Public patient engagement
• Investment in research
• Academic-industry partnership
• Disease registry
• Drug discovery

6. Environmental Health and Climate Change

• Environmental health
• Occupational health and safety
• Health care waste management
• Air pollution and health
• Environmental toxicology
• Climate change and health
• Planetary health
• Environmental determinants of health

Date: April 10, 2023 – April 12, 2023

Location: Kathmandu, Nepal

Deadline for Abstract Submission

15 March 2023

General Guidelines for abstract submission

• Only online submission is accepted.
• Abstract must be original work conducted in Nepal. Abstracts of those works conducted outside the country will not be entertained. In case of a review article (systematic and scoping review) the findings should be relevant to Nepal.
• Ethical approval letter from ERB of NHRC or IRCs approved by NHRC must be submitted along with the abstract. However, ethical approval may not require for some studies such as systematic review and metanalysis.
• Abstract must be prepared according to the guidelines provided for the summit. Abstract will only be accepted if submitted online using the supplied template.
• Abstract should not be resubmitted for any reason other than a notified submission error. If you do not receive a confirmation email please contact the Summit Focal Point.
• Abstract must contain sufficient information so that it provides an overview of the whole presentation. Please note that full article or extended abstract or presentation copy may be asked for submission as per the decision of the scientific committee. Submission of an abstract acknowledges the author’s consent for publication of the abstract in the Summit Proceeding.

Note: If you are unable to submit online, please contact the Summit Focal Point at: [email protected] or +977-01-4254220 for further information.

Abstract Layout Guideline

• Abstract must not exceed 300 words limit. The word limit relates only to the text of the abstract and does not include title, sub headings, authors and author address.
• Font type must be Arial Font size 12pt.
• 1.5 line spacing must be used.
• Images, tables or graphics are not to be included in the abstract body.
• Abstract must be free of typographical and grammatical errors.
• The text should be typed unjustified, without hyphenating words at line breaks.
• Hard returns (enter) should be used only to end headings and paragraphs, not to rearrange lines.
• Greek and other special characters may be included. If you are unable to reproduce a particular special character, please type out the name of the symbol in full.
• SI units should be used throughout the abstract.
• Standard abbreviations may be used for common terms only. Otherwise, any abbreviation should be given in brackets after the first full use of the word.
• It is the author’s responsibility to ensure all the information provided is correct.
• Requests for modification in abstract will not be entertained after the selection.  

Template for the Abstract

All abstracts should appear within the format of structure outlined below.

Title

The title should be in bold, sentence case with no full stop at the end.

e.g.: Health-sector responses to address the impacts of climate change in Nepal

Authors

The name of the authors should be in the following format:

e.g.: Meghnath Dhimal¹, David Groneberg², Ulrich Kuch²

Affiliations

Affiliations should include institution, town and country. Where there are multiple affiliations, each should be listed as a separate paragraph. Each institute should appear in the order used against the author names and show the appropriate superscript number.

e.g.: ²Nepal Health Research Council, Kathmandu, Nepal

           ²Gothe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Structure of abstracts

Abstracts should be structured into following sections using the following headings typed in bold with no colon at the end, e.g.

• Background
• Methodology
• Results
• Conclusion
• Key words

Ethical Approval

The research from which the abstract is prepared should have been ethically approved from the Ethical Review Board at the NHRC or one of the Institutional Review Committees (IRCs) at different institutions. If you consider your abstract as the one that does not require ethical approval, you may submit it and the selection will be subjected to the evaluation of the abstract evaluation committee under the Scientific Committee of the Summit on part of the requirement of ethical approval.