We use the example of the Gojjam Lymphoedema Best Practice Trial (GoLBeT), a pragmatic trial in a remote rural setting in northern Ethiopia, to extract lessons relevant to other investigators balancing the demands of practicality and community acceptability with internal and external validity in clinical trials.

3rd April 2018 • comment

Scoping available resources and tools used by investigators to set up and conduct malaria clinical trials in low and middle income countries within malaria endemic settings. Participate in the survey.

9th May 2017 • comment

Epidemic curves are an important component of the public health and global health toolbox. Learn more about creating and interpretting them.

9th January 2017 • comment

Professor Sallie Lamb talks about the history of clinical trials, and explains important concepts such as randomisation, masking and minimisation of bias.

20th July 2016 • comment

Join us in Oxford on the 25th of April to mark World Malaria Day 2016 at a series of talks and a panel discussion. The speakers will present their latest projects and help us to understand the unique and interconnected findings of their research.

14th April 2016 • comment

This study highlights the utility of rapid ethical assessment prior to clinical trials involving complex procedures and concepts.

23rd March 2016 • comment

Sponsorship in non-commercial clinical trials

by Raffaella Ravinetto , Katelijne De Nys, Marleen Boelaert, Ermias Diro, Graeme Meintjes, Yeka Adoke, Harry Tagbor, Minne Casteels

Non-commercial clinical research plays an increasingly essential role for global health. Multiple partners join in international consortia that operate under the limited timeframe of a specific funding period.

8th January 2016 • comment

Could scientists make history and change the way we deal with outbreaks?

7th January 2016 • comment

Building on the concept of rapid learning health systems, Dr. Peek’s seminar focuses on the use of health information technology to address epidemiological and public health questions and to accelerate the translation of research findings to clinical practice.

22nd December 2015 • comment

Video of Professor Peter Horby, the University of Oxford, on how he and his team set up clinical trials in the heart of the Ebola outbreak.

26th November 2015 • comment

Guidance for non-economist audience to understand economic evaluations of health care interventions from the ACT consortium.

4th August 2015 • comment

This article provides a helpful introduction to statistics as it relates to clinical research, explaining common terms and theories with examples and case studies. Powerpoint presentation also attached for further explanation.

24th July 2015 • comment

Healthcare associated infections (HAI) are of important concern in patient care. This talk discusses Visual Analytics techniques which have been developed to help detect, monitor, analyse and understand trends, clusters and outbreaks of HAI.

22nd July 2015 • comment

The SWAT and SWAR programme is identifying issues about the methods of trials and systematic reviews about which there is sufficient uncertainty to justify research to support well-informed decision making about future designs and choices.

21st July 2015 • comment

New guidelines help researchers undertaking systematic reviews and IPD meta-analyses to report their findings in a full and transparent manner.

13th July 2015 • comment

In this video of a seminar delivered at the University of Oxford in June 2014, Professor Nicholas White talks about the challenge of antimalarial resistance.

11th June 2015 • comment

In celebration of Global Health Trials' fifth birthday (May 11th 2015) Professor Trudie Lang, Principal Investigator of the programme, talks to us about why Global Health Trials was started, why people should share their experience, and what the future holds.

8th May 2015 • comment

Links to the SPIRIT guidelines for protocol development and information about these guidelines - all free and open access.

31st March 2015 • comment
24th February 2015 • comment

Discussing the study protocol

by D. Shamley, C. Heiberg, N. Kramer, B. Wright & C. Reddy
13th January 2015 • comment

Global Health Trials and Kintampo Health Research Centre collaborated to run the workshop 'Pragmatic and ethical research in disease outbreaks' in November 2014. Here we provide a summary of the workshop and the presentations from the day. 

9th January 2015 • comment

Professor Peter Piot, LSHTM, talks about Ebola and implications for Africa and understanding future epidemics at the Martin School, University of Oxford, 16th October 2014.

17th October 2014 • 0 comments

These logs from a trial in India, are comprised of essential checklists based on ICH-GCP guidelines enlisting all the important steps required for clinical trials. These checklists will serve as tools for clinical research professionals for executing clinical trials in time and effective manner.

5th September 2014 • comment

Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are widely accepted as the preferred study design for evaluating healthcare interventions. When the sample size is determined, a (target) difference is typically specified that the RCT is designed to detect. This provides reassurance that the study will be informative, i.e., should such a difference exist, it is likely to be detected with the required statistical precision. The aim of this review was to identify potential methods for specifying the target difference in an RCT sample size calculation.

19th May 2014 • comment

An introduction into and overview on the mathematics and practice of Bayesian (adaptive) clinical trials.

31st January 2014 • 0 comments

ESSENCE on Health Research have created a good practice document on research costing. It includes a review of the funding practices related to the definition and funding of direct and indirect costs. 

18th December 2013 • comment

This guide, developed by the WHO and released in December 2013, aims to facilitate implementation research in LMICs.

2nd December 2013 • comment

Researchers can often be tripped up by issues they encounter in developing regions and remote areas. Although no definitive answers are provided (there are just too many options and unknowns), the following issues should be considered when planning such a trial.  

10th May 2013 • comment

Research misconduct is a global problem as research is a global activity. Wherever there is human activity there is misconduct, but we lack reliable data on the extent and distribution of research misconduct. This PLoS paper seeks to illustrate some examples of researsch misconduct in LMICs.

3rd April 2013 • comment

Participant retention refers to keeping enrolled participants in a trial for the duration of the study. This article explains the concept of participant retention, and provides a template retention plan.

25th March 2013 • comment

Research reporting guidelines are standard statements that provide guidance on how to report research methodology and findings. These are in the form of checklists, flow diagrams or texts. Most of the biomedical journals require authors to comply with these guidelines. Guidelines are available for reporting various study designs:

  • CONSORT Statement (reporting of randomized controlled trials)
  • STARD (reporting of diagnostic accuracy studies)
  • STROBE (reporting of observational studies in epidemiology)
  • PRISMA (reporting of systematic reviews)
  • MOOSE (reporting of meta-analyses of observational studies)

26th October 2012 • comment

A range of downloadable templates and tools for Clinical Research, including monitoring checklists, budget spreadsheets, informed consent forms, SOPs and so on.

9th August 2012 • comment

This article is an introduction to cluster randomised trials.

23rd July 2012 • comment

We present this clinical trial as a gold standard example. This study addressed a key question in the management of severely ill children. It was conducted to a very high standard across 3 African countries. This article links to a short film that explains how this trial can be an example to all researchers in resource-limited settings and shows that research can and should be done.

27th May 2011 • comment

This article was written by a researcher from Sri Lanka and presents a very helpful overview on Biomedical Ethics. This article will be helpful to all levels of research staff and others who might want an accessible overview

26th October 2010 • comment

An example of a academic research centre resolving the issue of clinical trial data management Peer reviewed by members of the data management expert committee for this programme.

6th October 2010 • comment