Making Research Matter

Florence Nightingale was prescient in noting the effort needed
to promote and engage people in research. Evidence rarely
speaks for itself or, in her words, is ‘self-executive’ (McDonald
2005). In her own work around the report to the Indian
Sanitary Commission, she worked tirelessly and skilfully – ‘four
heavy years’ – to create demand for the finished product. This
included lobbying MPs and working with policymakers at all
levels to improve health and hygiene of ordinary soldiers. The
final report was a magisterial two-volume affair of over 2,000
pages, with data and statistics from a survey of all military
stations in India.
[2021]

Compartir: