Abstract :
It is evident that health researchers are the best economic investments that respond to people
needs, and comprehensive care of public health as the corner stone of sustainable development.
However, health researches suffer from some scientific and managerial defects. One famous
defect is the 10/90 gap in health research which was created in 1998, showing that only 10% of
health researchers are related to public health needs. Despite the title of 10/90 gap, much
progress has been made in the past few years, however, with different status in different
countries. This challenge still persists in the south countries . Therefore, as the first area of action
at national level, it is necessary for all governments, institutions and universities to measure their
investments in health researches and bring them in line as far as possible with their country’s
burden of disease, using a systematic methodology for research priority setting.
Particular attention should be paid to research outside the biomedical sector which has been
neglected and not well considered by health researchers, even though it is considered an
important issue with its impact on people's health.
In Iran, malignancies are the 10th reasons for burden of diseases with 3.1% of whole DALYs
and 4th cause of Years Life Lost (YLL) with 7.2 percent after injuries, cardiovascular and prenatal
diseases. More than 90% of burden of cancers are related to YLL .
Cancer causes are multi factorial: Genetics(less than 10%); tobacco consumption; diet; physical
activity; stresses and so on. These factors need to have special researches even outside the
biomedical section defining the case.
We need to conduct more researches on defining major risk factors affecting health(burden of
cancers in particular) and we also need to organize priority setting through health researches and
accounting into action nationally, regionally, and globally.
