Background:

Stakeholder involvement in priority setting may enhance the use of research in decision making, particularly in low resource settings such as sub-Saharan Africa. The Africa Centre for Systematic Reviews and Knowledge Translation identifies and synthesizes health systems evidence for decision making.

Objective:

To identify priority questions for health systems evidence synthesis for Uganda.

Methods:

We purposely selected decision makers (n = 15) from health related government departments, consumer advocacy groups and non-governmental organizations. The researchers (n = 29) were from universities and research institutes. We presented participants with background documents including the Norwegian EPOC satellite priority topics for low- and middle-income countries; and examples of research priority areas from World Health Organization health systems perspective and the Millennium Development Goals 4 (child health), 5 (maternal health) and 6 (infectious and non-communicable diseases), before completing two iterations of a mini-Delphi survey technique; followed by a feasibility scan of the PDQ-Evidence database.

Outcome measures:
Ten priority areas for health systems evidence synthesis ranked by: importance, availability of relevant research and viable options, uncertainty, opportunity for change and interest in deliberation.

Results:

Participants identified 34 priority areas for health systems research evidence synthesis. Most concerned delivery arrangements (18, 53%); followed by financial (9, 26%) and organizational (6, 18%) arrangements. However, financial arrangements (8, 80%) dominated the 10 priority questions that is; health insurance, health worker remuneration and resource allocation. We identified existing overviews (8) and systematic reviews (23) in PDQ-Evidence, addressing these topics.

Conclusions:

Our findings highlight financial arrangements as a resilient priority area for health system evidence synthesis in Uganda. The existing overviews and systematic reviews suggest a need to constantly engage decision makers about where and how to find relevant research evidence, and refine their information needs further.