IMPACT Webinar Series: Part 2

Professor Steer on a co-Investigator site visit for RRCU’s GOAL Trial project in Gulu, Uganda in 2019.

Localization of Research: Generating High Quality Data to Inform Local and Global Practice and Policy

Professor Andrew Steer

Webinars Archive - Heart University [heartuniversity.org]

IMPACT Webinar Series: Localizing Research

As part of the IMPACT webinar series, Professor Andrew Steer of Melbourne Children’s Hospital (Victoria, Australia) gave a presentation on June 21st, 2023, titled – “Localization of Research: Generating High Quality Data to Inform Local and Global Practice and Policy.”  Professors Steer, a long-time collaborator with RRCU, has focused his career on researching scabies, which is strongly associated with Acute Rheumatic Fever (ARF), the precursor to Rheumatic Heart Disease (RHD).

Professor Steer began his talk by defining “localization of research” as conducting tailored studies to specific regions.  Steer noted that, when designing localized studies, it is critical to account for unique social, economic, and political factors and be aware of sensitive contexts.  It is equally important to collaborate with local stakeholders to ensure that the study methodologies are relevant and applicable to the population.

Professor Steer indicated that to decolonize global health, researchers must aim to address historical power imbalances, inequities, and biases within the field.  Decolonization of global health not only requires challenging previous health agendas, but also prioritizing local knowledge, self-determination, and equity, with the overall aim of closing the health disparity gap between high- and low-resource regions.

Professor Steer argued that an important tenet of decolonization is the localization of research, which can empower community researchers, rebalance power dynamics, promote equity, and generate relevant knowledge to design interventions and policies specific to local populations needs.

During his talk, Professor Steer referenced a series of papers published in the last five years that describe four principles of localization, each of which should be applied to each state phase of research:

1.       Dismantle inequities

2.       Cultivate a culture of collaboration between low- and middle-income countries and high-income countries

3.       Work toward secure funding and sustainability

4.       Learn from previous successes and failures

Throughout his talk, Professor Steer used his experience researching scabies in Fiji as an example of applying these four principles. His past 20 years of collaboration with local researchers has generated localized data specific to the needs of the Fiji population and has opened many opportunities for future funding and more locally led research projects. He and his team aim to use their findings to impact policy outcomes at both the local and global level. One of their most notable achievements is that, through collaboration with three countries and the support of an International Alliance, scabies is now recognized as a neglected tropical disease by the World Health Organization. 

RRCU and the IMPACT webinar series is grateful to for Professor Steer for providing real-world examples of localized research and how it can not only impact local policy and practice, but how it can impact the global population.

*The IMPACT training program is designed to build capacity for the next generation of RHD researchers to meet this goal.  This Ask the Expert Series webinar, will showcase 4 global RHD experts as they tell us why they work in this field, how they built their careers, and what they see as the next critical research priorities to achieve global RHD control.