Our research
We are not only commissioned to do research. We also ask our own questions — independently and with academic and institutional partners — on issues we believe matter and that are not being adequately studied.
Three reasons, and all three are worth stating
BECAUSE SOME QUESTIONS HAVE NO CLIENT
A great deal of commissioned research answers questions somebody was already willing to pay for. Some of the most consequential questions in public health and social policy do not have that sponsor. An organization that only responds to briefs never asks them.
BECAUSE IT MAKES THE COMMISSIONED WORK BETTER
A team that designs, funds, runs and publishes its own studies knows what a good study looks like from the inside. That is not a claim we can prove to you in a sentence, but it is why we do it.
BECAUSE EVIDENCE SHOULD OUTLIVE ITS FUNDER
An institute that only produces what it is paid to produce has no independent voice. We want one.
The questions we are working on
These are the areas we are actively working in and seeking funding for. A stated, specific agenda is what a new institute has instead of a back catalogue — so we have made ours specific.
Access to chronic and end-stage care
The question. Who reaches continuing treatment for chronic and end-stage disease in Bangladesh, who stops, and why.
Why it matters. Chronic care is where a health system's inequalities compound. A patient who cannot sustain dialysis, cancer treatment or hypertension control does not appear in a mortality statistic as an access failure — they appear as a death from disease.
Status: In the field — funded by the Planning Division of Bangladesh
We are looking for: Academic partners · clinical site access · longitudinal funding
Stigma as a health-system barrier
The question. How social stigma operates alongside distance, cost and availability to keep people away from care.
Why it matters. Stigma is routinely named in the literature and rarely measured alongside the structural barriers it interacts with. Programmes designed against one and not the other tend to under-perform without anyone being able to say why.
Status: In the field — funded by the Bangladesh Medical Research Council
We are looking for: Qualitative collaborators · instrument validation partners
Household cost and financial protection
The question. What illness costs Bangladeshi households directly, and how often that cost is catastrophic.
Why it matters. Out-of-pocket spending is the dominant mode of health financing in Bangladesh. Which households are pushed into hardship, by which conditions, and at what point is a question with direct implications for financing policy.
Status: In design — seeking funding
We are looking for: Funders · health-economics collaborators · secondary data access
Evidence use and the research-to-practice gap
The question. What actually determines whether a completed study changes a decision in Bangladesh.
Why it matters. This is the question the whole institute is built around, and we think it deserves to be studied rather than assumed. If we are going to argue that research should reach people, we should be able to show what makes that happen.
Status: In design — seeking funding and partners
We are looking for: Institutional partners · funders · policy-process access
Three studies in the field
Socio-economic inequalities and health-seeking behaviour among Bangladeshi dialysis patients
Who reaches dialysis, who stops, and what it costs the households that pay for it.
Social stigma, healthcare access barriers and utilisation in coastal Bangladesh
How stigma operates as an access barrier in a setting where distance and cost are already barriers.
Health-seeking behaviour, social stigma and determinants among cancer patients in Bangladesh
What determines how late a cancer patient presents, and which of those determinants are modifiable.
Publications
Our institutional publication record begins with the studies above. We are not going to pretend otherwise, and we are not going to publish an empty page: an empty publications list announces that you have none.
In the meantime, what we can show you is the peer-reviewed work of the people who work here, produced in their previous and concurrent academic roles — correctly attributed to the individual and the institution where the work was done.
How we choose our questions
- Would the answer change something? If no decision or practice depends on it, it can wait.
- Is it under-studied in this context? Replicating a well-answered question where it has already been answered is not a contribution.
- Can we answer it properly with the resources realistically available? A question we can only half-answer produces a study nobody should rely on.
- Can the answer reach the people it concerns? If the finding could only ever live in a journal, we think hard about whether it is the right study for us.
Our own research is held to the standard we sell
Ethical review before data collection. Pre-specified analysis plans. Disclosed funding. Disclosed conflicts of interest. And publication of findings regardless of whether they are the findings we expected.
Fund a study, or bring us one
We are actively seeking research partners and research funding across all four areas above. We can provide our research agenda, team CVs, governance and integrity documentation, and registration details.