Template-type: ReDIF-Paper 1.0
Author-Name: Engel, Nora
Author-Email: engel@merit.unu.edu
Author-Workplace-Name: UNU-MERIT
Title: Innovation Dynamics in Tuberculosis Control in India: The Shift to New 
	 Partnerships
Abstract: Innovation dynamics in Tuberculosis control in India: The shift to new 
	 partnerships Tuberculosis remains the biggest infectious killer in India 
	 and worldwide, and it has recently regained substantial international 
	 attention with its come-back in drug resistant forms. The environment, 
	 the disease and the societal response to it are changing and with it 
	 challenges and opportunities to control the disease. Innovation in a 
	 variety of areas such as improved diagnostic tests, drugs, delivery 
	 mechanisms, service processes, institutions and treatment regimes is 
	 needed in order to be able to respond to the changing public health 
	 challenge.
	 Recent developments in the literature emphasize that innovation is a 
	 complex endeavour that includes processes of negotiation, learning and 
	 alignment amongst researchers, health practitioners, firms and public 
	 authorities. The ground level realities for innovation in countries such 
	 as India where TB is a social as much as a clinical problem are 
	 complicated with challenges and constraints inherent to the health and 
	 wider social system that hamper learning, experimenting and thus 
	 innovation.  
	 Based on preliminary results from qualitative fieldwork in India this 
	 paper will examine the innovation dynamics in one of the recent policy 
	 changes in TB control in India: the emergence of new partnerships 
	 between private medical providers, NGOs and the government. The paper 
	 traces where new ideas come from, how they make their way through the 
	 existing control structure and how the existing efforts to control TB 
	 respond to and cope with these new developments. The central argument is 
	 that the dynamics of innovation in a complex, conflicting and confusing 
	 setting like TB control can be understood as a continuous evolution of 
	 problems, promises and solutions.
Classification-JEL: I18, O31, O38
Keywords: Innovation dynamics, public-private mix, Tuberculosis, India
Series: UNU-MERIT Working Papers
Creation-Date: 2009
Number: 2009-040
File-URL: https://unu-merit.nl/publications/wppdf/2009/wp2009-040.pdf
File-Format: application/pdf
File-Size: 275 Kb
Handle: RePEc:unm:unumer:2009040