Health research benefits not measured

The Health research Council was asked:

As the HRC “invests approximately $120 million per year on behalf of government”, what independent analysis, if any, has the HRC undertaken to ensure the almost three-quarters of a billion dollars invested since 2018 has benefitted New Zealanders and their health.

Seems a reasonable question. You spend $360 million every three years on health research, so can you pint to the benefits of it for NZers health.

HRC undertakes a rigorous assessment process where each application is assessed by science experts before any grant is recommended for funding and any investment is made. Any independent analysis to determine the benefit of investment in health research would need to be undertaken by an agency other than the HRC.

So the answer seems to be there is no independent analysis of health benefits from the research.

I’d like to see much more health research focused on areas such as communicable diseases (ie the next pandemic) and less on spending millions to discover that if your kids go to the supermarket with you, they see lots of advertisements!

A good approach for the Government would be to mandate much more of a focus on actual outcomes. For example does a sugar tax actually led to decreases in obesity as opposed to just decreases in that food or drinks that is taxed.