As a policymaker, what do you see as the major challenge of using evidence to improve policy?

Currently, there are not many stakeholders who use data or research results as scientific evidence to improve health policy. For example, only 15% of provinces used research results for health planning (based on information from the Center for Health Determinant Analysis). Yet, we expect that policy should be based on scientific evidence or, in other words, evidence-based policy, so that interventions can be developed to address the problems or needs of the populations we serve.

How do you see the benefit of Rapid Review for policymakers?

Implementation of rapid reviews can help stakeholders to obtain more complete and accurate data or information from multiple research sources that can be used as a basis for recommendations, advocacy or intervention development.

Do you plan to implement a Rapid Review to assist your work and the work of your team that will support the policy-making at the national level?

A researcher’s ability to implement rapid reviews is indispensable in producing more comprehensive information from research results that can be used for policy recommendations at the national level. Capacity building is very much needed to improve the ability to undertake rapid reviews. One of the capacity building efforts that can be undertaken is to conduct workshops, such as the one held by FPHUI.

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Telly Purnamasari, MD, MSc, PhD is a Senior Researcher of the National Institute of Health Research and Development (NIHRD) at the Ministry of Health Indonesia. She currently serves as the Head of Sub Division of Networking and Public Relations. She is also a member of the Research Team for the upcoming national Health Facility Research, and was the Researcher Coordinator for the 2018 Basic Health Research (national health research led by the Ministry of Health) for Jakarta and Yogyakarta Provinces.