Inventory and evaluation of Swedish public health research

Abstract

In 2003, the Government of Sweden commissioned the Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research (FAS) and the National Institute for Public Health (S-NIPH) to produce a status report on Swedish public health research (PHR). The report was to include an inventory of ongoing research and research environments as well as an evaluation of Swedish public health research. Both the inventory and the evaluation are published as a supplement to this issue of SJPH. The central objective for the status report was to give the Government a basis for its coming Bill on Research, originally planned for delivery to Parliament in March 2005. FAS and S-NIPH chose to appoint an international panel comprising leading experts from Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the USA in order to get an independent evaluation. The primary objectives of the evaluation were to focus on the development and status of Swedish public health research from a national and international scientific perspective. Also, consideration of the extent to which research in Sweden is contributing to health development and public health policy should be part of the evaluation. The evaluation provided a profile of ongoing public health research in Sweden on the basis of institutional self-analyses, studies of publications and citations, hearings, and other forms of assessment. It was not the intention that the evaluation should rank departments and institutes according to their scientific performance and public involvement. The panel was very impressed by Swedish PHR and considered Sweden as one of the world leaders in PHR in general and as at the forefront of research in several areas, a fact reinforced by the large number of Swedish publications in top international scientific journals. These areas include epidemiology and register-based research, research related to working life and to the environment, and research on inequality in health. Swedish excellence in these areas was assumed to be due to a unique combination of an excellent data infrastructure, an enlightened public sector, and a productive public health research workforce. Several recommendations related to structural elements: