title: [Building bridges between research and policy to extend social protection in health in Latin America and the Caribbean: a strategy for cooperation].
abstract: The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and International Development Research Centre (IDRC) have promoted a joint initiative to design, implement, and evaluate innovative strategies for the Extension of Social Protection in Health (SPH) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), involving active partnership between researchers and research users. This initiative was based on a previous review of research on health sector reforms and the recommendations of the workshop on "Health Sector Reforms in the Americas: Strengthening the Links between Research and Policy" (Montreal, Canada, 2001). In its first phase, the initiative supported the development of proposals aiming to extend SPH, elaborated jointly by researchers and decision-makers. In the second phase, the implementation of five of these proposals was supported in order to promote the development of new SPH strategies and new stakeholder interaction models. In this edition of the journal, the process of linking researchers and decision-makers will be analyzed in the context of the five projects supported by this initiative.
authors.affiliation: Centro Internacional de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo-Oficina Regional, Montevideo, Uruguay. rbazzani@idrc.org.uy
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bazzani
authors.forename: Eduardo
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Levcovitz
authors.forename: Soledad
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Urrutia
authors.forename: Christina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zarowsky
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research; D017691:Caribbean Region; D003256:Community Participation; D018166:Health Care Reform / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006291:Health Policy; D006293:Health Promotion; D006296:Health Services; D006801:Humans; D007843:Latin America; D010175:Pan American Health Organization; D011050:Policy Making; D012108:Research Personnel; D012935:Social Justice