Professor Bero’s overall research program addresses the broad questions regarding research evidence including: What is evidence? How can we reduce bias in the evidence base, specifically the design, conduct and reporting of research? How can we communicate research findings in an understandable and convincing way to a variety of stakeholders? How can we promote the use of evidence in decision making while taking into account the social, political and ethical context of decisions?
Her planned current and future work includes methodological analyses of nutrition research relevant to the treatment and prevention of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease and promoting the use of quality evidence to inform health policy to reduce the burden of these diseases. Her research program will focus on describing cultural, social, corporate, political and other influences on the design, conduct and publication of research. The Evidence Synthesis program has an emphasis on developing methods for complex public health guidelines, including environmental and dietary guidelines. The Pharmaceutical Policy program gathers empirical evidence on influences on medicine policy decisions. It has an additional focus on improving medicines use for noncommunicable diseases in low-resource settings. Her team will study the process of innovation for medicines for noncommunicable disease, assess barriers and facilitators to the quality use of essential medicines, and develop and test interventions to improve essential medicines policy, supply, distribution and use.
