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Home / Public Health Action, Volume 5, Number 4

Open Access Setting priorities for a research agenda to combat drug-resistant tuberculosis in children

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Setting: Numerous knowledge gaps hamper the prevention and treatment of childhood drug-resistant tuberculosis (TB). Identifying research priorities is vital to inform and develop strategies to address this neglected problem.

Objective: To systematically identify and rank research priorities in childhood drug-resistant TB.

Design: Adapting the Child Health and Nutrition Research Initiative (CHNRI) methodology, we compiled 53 research questions in four research areas, then classified the questions into three research types. We invited experts in childhood drug-resistant TB to score these questions through an online survey.

Results: A total of 81 respondents participated in the survey. The top-ranked research question was to identify the best combination of existing diagnostic tools for early diagnosis. Highly ranked treatment-related questions centred on the reasons for and interventions to improve treatment outcomes, adverse effects of drugs and optimal treatment duration. The prevalence of drug-resistant TB was the highest-ranked question in the epidemiology area. The development type questions that ranked highest focused on interventions for optimal diagnosis, treatment and modalities for treatment delivery.

Conclusion: This is the first effort to identify and rank research priorities for childhood drug-resistant TB. The result is a resource to guide research to improve prevention and treatment of drug-resistant TB in children.

Keywords: Sentinel Project; adolescent; childhood; paediatric

Document Type: Research Article

Affiliations: 1: National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (formerly Tuberculosis Research Centre), Chennai, India 2: 3: Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Publication date: 21 December 2015

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  • Public Health Action (PHA), The Union's quarterly Open Access journal, welcomes the submission of articles on operational research. It publishes high-quality scientific research on health services, providing new knowledge on how to improve access, equity, quality and efficiency of health systems and services.

    The Editors will consider any manuscript reporting original research on quality improvements, cost-benefit analysis, legislation, training and capacity building, with a focus on all relevant areas of public health (e.g. infection control, nutrition, TB, HIV, vaccines, smoking, COVID-19, microbial resistance, outbreaks etc).

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