Research

PIH’s mission to bring the benefits of modern medicine to the world’s most vulnerable communities, relies on our research. By leading, facilitating, and conducting rigorous research, we not only continually improve care delivery in the communities we serve, but also share best practices and successful implementations of health interventions with our partners to foster opportunities for knowledge exchange and collaboration.

Research for Health is an essential component for development. A growing number of research activities are being conducted in Sierra Leone. Those research activities, however, are mostly commissioned, conducted, and funded externally, and they are not always aligned with national health priorities. To ensure that research addresses Sierra Leone’s health priorities, the PIH-SL strategy has been developed and will guide investments in health research that are aimed at improving the health status of people in Sierra Leone and contributing to the overall goal of the national research for health policy.

PIH-SL recognizes that locally-led research and projects facilitate knowledge generation, and quality improvement and provide a strong evidence base for policy and program innovations. The PIH-SL research focus has been in line with Sierra Leone’s national Health Priorities (SLNHP) which include: HIV and AIDS; Internal Medicine; Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs); Tuberculosis; Primary Care/Community-based program; Reproductive, Maternal and Child Health; Mental Health (including epilepsy); Specific Tropical Diseases, etc. Overall, the goals of our research focus on four broad areas: evidence-based programming, publication and sharing of research findings experiences, evidence-based care delivery, and capacity development.