Research proposal writing

Do you have an idea for an epidemiological study? And do you need assistance to write the research proposal? Epi Result can assist you in turning a concept into a research proposal for a quantitative study, including formulation of objectives, review of the existing epidemiological literature, data collection strategies and statistical analysis plans.

Epi Result can either write the research proposal for you, or assist you in the process by giving guidance and commenting on your output. Either way, we will go through the following steps together, in order to systematically write the research proposal:

1  Define research objectives

We will first sit down to clarify your ideas for the study. With that information a quick literature search [Pubmed, Google] should be done to get an answer to the following questions:

1. How important is the problem, and what will be the impact on this problem once the study has been conducted?
2. Are there other studies published on the same topic and if so, what data is still needed?

Based on this information, we will re-visit the objectives of the planned study and finalize them.

2  Funding agency

In case you need funding for your study, a search for potential funders should be conducted and their applicability assessed. Once you know which funding agency you want to approach, the specific requirements (procedures, forms, deadlines) should be checked to ensure that you make a correct application.

3  Literature search

Now it is time to do a more extensive literature search. Focus will be on similar studies conducted in the field, and the methods of these studies. The reason for that is that you either might want to be comparable to earlier studies (e.g. regarding measurement instruments) or different from them (e.g. regarding population included).

4  Methods of the study

During the writing process, we need to answer several questions, to decide on the correct methods for the study. For example:

• What would be the appropriate design for your quantitative study?
• What is the setting in which you want to conduct the study? And the population (age, gender), including the size?
• What measurement instrument are you going to use (interview, written questionnaire, observation)? A draft of the actual instrument needs to be developed at this stage (so that it is ready for piloting).
• How are you going to collect the data (yourself versus fieldworkers, on paper versus electronically)?
• How are you going to handle and analyse the data you collect? It is actually very important to think about this carefully before developing/finalizing the measurement instrument.
• Are there any ethical issues that need to be attended? Submission to one or more medical ethical committees?

5  Finalizing

When all documents are ready for approval by the institutional committees/the medical ethical committee(s)/the funding agency, the only thing that is left is crossing fingers! If a revision is needed, we will have a look together at the comments and try to revise the proposal according to that, if relevant.

Here you can find a format for a research proposal for an epidemiological study (e.g. for a MSc thesis).

Recent projects

• Writing a funding proposal for the Gates Foundation on the assessment of a comprehensive community prevention approach for HIV, TB, hypertension and diabetes, linked to a monitoring system for the occurrence of disease.
  Customer: Ndlovu Care Group
  Reference: Hugo Tempelman
• Writing a literature review on growth faltering and impaired development (prevalence, risk factors and interventions) in children under 2 in developing countries, as part of a study proposal for the Gates Foundation.
  Customer: Wits University
  Reference: Shane Norris

Please contact me to discuss your own needs regarding research proposal writing.