Jump to

Farrinstitute is reader-supported. We may receive commissions on purchases made through links on our site.

Importance of Health Research

Importance of Health Research

By Kire Stojkovski M.D
Editor akhila Published 30 May 2023
Time to read 4 min

Health research is referred to as the various types of scientific investigations whose main goal is to test sample ideas, answer the questions, improve the treatment options, and increase human health knowledge.

Importance of Health Research

Health research is quite crucial, and it provides plenty of benefits. The reason is that information changes over time; for instance, what we currently know about cancer may change with time as people continue to conduct more research.

Many medical treatments and health programs that are available today have been made successful thanks to health research. These are some of the advances that have helped to improve the five-year survival rate for all the cancers rising from 52 to 68 percent over the last two decades.

There is ongoing research to help improve, prevent, diagnose, and treat the various human diseases, and it requires patients to participate and carers and healthy people. That will significantly help to provide considerable results that are promising and efficient.

Why Participate?
So, why should people participate in research? That is a question that a lot of people ask. You see, the involvement of carers, patients, and healthy people is necessary for research to assist the researchers in learning and understanding more about a specific disease and better ways on how it should be treated.

A lot of people who are diagnosed with cancer and they decide to participate in research do it mainly because they hope to improve the outcome for others that may be diagnosed in the future. They also hope to improve their cancer situation and get better.

Here is how adults and children can participate in the research:

  • Doing surveys
  • Trials of treatments
  • Allowing access to their medical records
  • Allowing samples that have been taken during tests or treatment to be used to help in the research.
  • Making sure they agree to regular examinations by health experts.

Who Is Allowed to Participate in the Research?

All the health research studies have various guidelines that indicate the people who are eligible to participate. The good news is that both adults and children can participate in health research, except for kids under 18 years old.

However, it is always stated that it is crucial for people of all ages to participate in the research, regardless of their social, economic, or racial background.

Where the Research Takes Place
Usually, the research is carried out in a lot of places such as hospitals, labs, universities, and even cancer centers. Other times people can participate in the research from their homes or be asked to answer a survey.

Is it Safe?
Unfortunately, there is no precise answer to this question. However, all the studies need to be approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee before starting.

How is Research Funded?
Research funding comes from a lot of sources. They include:

  • Cancer charities
  • National health and medical research council (NHMRC)
  • Private sector
  • Medical research institutions and clinics
  • Government bodies

Conflict of Interest
A conflict of interest arises typically in most research projects. It refers to the interests of a specific organization or researcher that influences the results of research. Therefore, any possible or actual conflicts of interest are required to be disclosed to researchers. This means that all the research projects need to provide details of how they plan to manage any conflict of interest that arises.

{
“@context”: “https://schema.org”,
“@type”: “BlogPosting”,
“mainEntityOfPage”: {
“@type”: “WebPage”,
“@id”: “https://farrinstitute.org/research-education/research/”
},
“headline”: “Importance of Health Research”,
“description”: “Health research is referred to as the various types of scientific investigations whose main goal is to test sample ideas, answer questions, improve treatment options, and increase human health knowledge.”,
“image”: “https://farrinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Health-Research-1536×1024.jpg.webp”,
“author”: {
“@type”: “Person”,
“name”: “Ethan Haynes”,
“url”: “https://farrinstitute.org/author/ethan-haynes/”
},
“publisher”: {
“@type”: “Organization”,
“name”: “Farr Institute”,
“logo”: {
“@type”: “ImageObject”,
“url”: “https://farrinstitute.org/”
}
},
“datePublished”: “2020-05-30”,
“dateModified”: “2023-05-26”
}