Applied Biomedical Research

Research is a careful systematic inquiry in any field of knowledge with the aim of describing, summarizing, interpreting, explaining or forecasting principles or phenomena and generating generalizable knowledge. It aims at establishing evidence to support or refute a given body of existing evidence or knowledge. Such systematic inquiry uses disciplined methods to answer questions and solve identified problems. The ultimate outcome is to develop, refine and expand a given knowledge base, such as improvement in management or quality of care. Traditionally, research in health sciences focused on disease causes, determinants, prevention or consequences at community level (epidemiological and public health research) and disease prevention, causes, predictors, manifestation, therapy and consequences at the individual level (clinical research). Today, the scope of research requires competences of research on discrete biological factors and markers that predict or change in disease status (genetic and molecular biology research), behavior of individuals and communities in different situations and contexts (social research), and research to increase uptake of effective interventions.