¹Suad Hannawi,¹Haifa Hannawi

¹Emirates Health Services

Background:

Health research is very valuable to societies. It can provide important information about disease trends, prevalence and incidences, risk factors, different manifestations, and outcomes of treatment. It is important that each health system and each nation review and reorganize its medical research capacity. This narrative review abstract to analyze the rheumatology research setting in the UAE

Material(s) and Method(s):

This abstract analyzes the rheumatology research environment in the Emirates Health Services and Ministry of Health and Prevention of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), its opportunities, and its challenges.

Results:

The challenges of rheumatology research in the United Arab Emirates occur because of the potential following reasons; 1-demographic complexity of the UAE. The UAE’s population is made up of several different demographic groups from different cultural, geographical, and socioeconomic backgrounds, as it relies on the expatriate for the growing economy. 2-complexity of the health system; UAE’s health service is delivered by various health authorities (Ministry of Health and Prevention and Emirates Health Services, Department of Health Authority (DHA)-Dubai, Department of Health (DOH)-Abu-Dhabi), with each authority build up their own regulations resulting in absence of unifying nationwide health policies and research regulations and guidelines. 3-lack of organizational and administration support for the research and researchers at different levels including macro-level (such as, governments), meso level (such as, regional health authorities, hospitals), and micro-level (such as, clinical programs) levels. 4-absence of qualified rheumatology research centers that focus on researches and researchers. 5-lack of research allocated financial resources 5-absence of proper research environment including basic research training and time allocated for research, and finally 6-Lack of public awareness about research importance.

Conclusion:

Research in general and in rheumatology, in particular, is a complicated process that requires long-term commitment and support. Therefore, there is an urgent need to establish an adequate framework and listed requirements that can support the researchers and the research sites in getting the needed funds and resources to self-sustain research activities for the best of public health care strategies.