Abstract
BackgroundPublic health research provides evidence for practice across fields including health care, health promotion and health surveillance. Levels of public health research vary markedly across European Union (EU) countries, and are lowest in the EU's new member states (in Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean). However, these countries now receive most of the EU's Structural Funds, some of which are allocated to research.MethodsSTEPS, an EU-funded study, sought to assess support for public health research at national and European levels. To identify support through the Structural funds, STEPS drew information from country respondents and internet searches for all twelve EU new member states.ResultsThe EU allocates annually around €7 billion through the Structural Funds for member states' own use on research. These funds can cover infrastructure, academic employment, and direct research grants. The programmes emphasise links to business. Support for health research includes major projects in biosciences, but direct support for public health research was found in only three countries - Cyprus, Latvia and Lithuania.ConclusionsPublic health research is not prioritised in the EU's Structural Funds programme in comparison with biomedicine. For the research dimension of the new European programme for Structural Funds 2014-2002, ministries of health should propose public health research to strengthen the evidence-base for European public health policy and practice.
Highlights
Public health, undertaken at organisational and system level through disease prevention and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of health care, contributes importantly to population health and social wellbeing
The European Union’s budget, comprising just over 1% of total GNP of the member states, is allocated in two major tranches - 43% for ‘natural resources’, and 37% for ‘cohesion policy’. (The budget for research, education and training is around 7% of the total, and for the Health Directorate only 0.07%.) In the period 2007-2013, the EU has allocated most of the Structural Funds to the 12 EU ‘new’ member states, which have levels of GDP less than 75% of the EU average [11]
The Commission sets the total sum, reporting structure (Operational Programmes) and broad priorities, while member states determine the balance of these resource against their own priorities
Summary
Undertaken at organisational and system level through disease prevention and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of health care, contributes importantly to population health and social wellbeing. STEPS (Strengthening Public Health Research in Europe) was developed and funded through the EU’s Science in Society programme to investigate the gradient further. The objective of STEPS was to assess the public health research systems in Europe and the contribution of civil society organisations to health research in the EU ‘new member states’. Levels of public health research vary markedly across European Union (EU) countries, and are lowest in the EU’s new member states (in Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean). These countries receive most of the EU’s Structural Funds, some of which are allocated to research
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