Recent work such as that of the Joint Health Systems Research Project has done a great deal to support and encourage health systems research. Despite that, health service managers in developing countries only rarely regard research as integral to the process of priority setting, planning and...

Scarce resources for health require a process for setting priorities. The exact mechanism chosen has important implications for the type of priorities and plans set, and in particular their relationship to the principles of primary health care. One technique increasingly advocated as an aid to...