Workshop advances the use of research data for infectious-disease treatment

In 2018, CREATES convened the workshop "Improving Research Data to Inform Better Treatment of Poverty-Related Infectious Diseases" with support from the Newton Foundation. The workshop brought scientists into a conversation that is central to effective therapeutic research: how to ensure that the data generated through laboratories, clinical studies, and public-health programmes can support reliable conclusions and better treatment decisions.

Why better data matters

Poverty-related infectious diseases are shaped by biology, living conditions, access to care, health-system capacity, and the local performance of medicines and interventions. Research in this field must therefore answer complex questions using information collected across different sites, populations, and scientific disciplines. If that information is incomplete, inconsistent, poorly managed, or disconnected from the treatment question, even a well-funded study may produce evidence that is difficult to interpret or apply.

Better research data begins long before statistical analysis. It depends on clear questions, appropriate study design, consistent definitions, careful collection, traceable records, quality control, secure management, and an analysis plan suited to the scientific problem. Each stage affects the credibility of the next. The workshop's focus reflected the need to treat data quality as a shared research responsibility rather than a task left only to data managers at the end of a study.

Connecting evidence with treatment

The phrase "to inform better treatment" is important. CREATES' mission is not limited to generating publications; it is concerned with evidence that can improve medicines, clinical decisions, implementation, and patient care. For infectious diseases, this may mean understanding whether a treatment performs consistently in a local population, detecting patterns that require further investigation, identifying operational barriers, or producing evidence strong enough to guide a larger study or policy discussion.

Moving from data to treatment also requires collaboration. Clinicians understand the realities of patient care. Laboratory scientists interpret biological measurements. Pharmacologists consider exposure, safety, and therapeutic response. Data scientists and statisticians test whether apparent patterns are robust. Study teams understand how information was collected, while communities provide essential context about feasibility and relevance. When these perspectives are connected, data become more meaningful and conclusions become more responsible.

Strengthening an evidence culture

The workshop took place during a particularly active period in CREATES' capacity-building programme. In the same year, the Centre organised training in clinical-trial operations, pharmacovigilance and safety-risk management, research management, and pharmacometrics. Together, these activities addressed different parts of the evidence pathway: how studies are organised, how safety is monitored, how research is led, how quantitative relationships are understood, and how data are turned into decisions.

This integrated approach matters because research quality cannot be secured through a single specialist function. A strong database cannot correct a poorly framed question, and sophisticated analysis cannot compensate for unreliable collection. Equally, high-quality data have limited public value if findings are not communicated and translated into action. Building an evidence culture means helping every member of a research team understand both the integrity of their own work and its relationship to the final conclusion.

A foundation for locally relevant research

CREATES works in a region where infectious diseases remain major public-health priorities and where local evidence is essential. Treatment guidelines and product-development decisions are strongest when they reflect the populations, disease patterns, health facilities, and implementation conditions in which interventions will actually be used.

The 2018 workshop therefore represents more than a technical training event. It captures a principle that continues to guide CREATES: trustworthy health decisions require trustworthy evidence, and trustworthy evidence must be designed, generated, managed, analysed, and interpreted with discipline. By strengthening scientists' ability to work with research data, the Centre contributes to studies that are more credible, more locally relevant, and more capable of improving treatment.