Abstract
•Prioritizing areas for health research is necessary because of scarce research funding.•Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the leading cause of mortality and morbidity globally.•We use multi-criteria decision analysis to prioritize 19 NCDs for research funding.•Five prioritization criteria and weights from a survey of stakeholders are applied.•The NCD priority list ranges from coronary heart disease down to headaches.
To develop and pilot a framework based on multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) to prioritize non-communicable diseases (NCDs) to support health research funding decision-making.
The framework involves identifying NCDs to be prioritized, specifying prioritization criteria and determining their weights from a survey of stakeholders. The mean weights from the survey are applied to the NCDs’ ratings on the criteria to generate a ‘total score’ for each NCD, by which the NCDs are prioritized.
Nineteen NCDs and five criteria were included. The criteria, in decreasing order of importance (mean weights in parentheses), are: deaths across the population (27.7 %), loss of quality-of-life across the population (23.0 %), cost to patients and families (18.6 %), cost to the health system (17.2 %), and whether vulnerable groups are disproportionately affected (13.4 %). The priority list of NCDs, stratified into four tiers of importance, is: ‘Very critical’ priority: coronary heart disease, back and neck pain, diabetes mellitus; ‘Critical’ priority: dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, stroke; ‘High’ priority: colon and rectum cancer, depressive disorders, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, chronic kidney disease, breast cancer, prostate cancer, arthritis, lung cancer; and ‘Medium’ priority: asthma, hearing loss, melanoma skin cancer, addictive disorders, non-melanoma skin cancer, headaches.
The results indicate the framework for prioritizing NCDs for research funding is feasible and effective. The framework could also be used for other health conditions.