Research Priority Setting for Social Determinants of Health Research Center of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in 2013

It is obvious that، because of the lack of resources، we should devote our limited resources to priorities in order to reach an acceptable level of health. The objective of this study was to research priority setting for Pediatric Surgery Research Center; with the participation of all stakeholders. This is a Health System Research (HSR) project in order to apply governance and leadership issues with the participation of 41 people including faculty members in Pediatric Surgery Research Center، Shahid Beheshti Medical University and the other pediatric specialists and health system stakeholders as well as the people associated with health system inside & outside the university. This was performed in 2010 using the Council on Health Research for Development) COHRED (model with little change. Based on the model، at first the stakeholders were identified and the field situation of Pediatric Surgery was analyzed. Then، research areas and titles were specified and research priorities were set out by giving scores according to the criteria. The seven obtained research areas in priority order are included pediatric trauma، pediatric cancers، pediatric urology diseases، undescended testicles in children، developmental genetics & congenital defects، emergency in children and application of laparoscopic surgery in children. Because each of the research areas is composed of multiple subareas، we managed to finally specify 43 research subareas as research priorities. These subareas included epidemiology، risk factors، prevention، screening، diagnosis and treatment. They also included follow-up، complications، knowledge & attitudes of parents، quality of life، economy aspects and data bank for further research. In this project، research priorities were set out for Pediatric Surgery Research Center of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences، with the participation of all the stakeholders based on the recommended model of WHO (COHRED). It seems that the reliability of the priorities is in moderate level، but there is certain validity in obtaining the best content in terms of the study conditions.