NEED is a project aimed at assessing unmet health-related needs in order to guide innovation and health policies more effectively. Partly funded by BELSPO, this initiative is the result of a collaboration between the KCE and Sciensano.
In previous reports, the NEED research team developed a framework for assessing unmet needs for a given disease or health condition, which was then tested for Crohn's disease and malignant melanoma. Its applicability to rare diseases was also assessed.
In this new report, the fifth in this initiative, the team is now proposing an innovative method for identifying and selecting health problems for which there is potentially a large number of unmet needs, both in Belgium and at European level. Given the time and financial investment required, it would be utopian to hope to carry out an exhaustive assessment of all the unmet needs for all health conditions in one go. It is therefore important to be able to identify those that should be assessed as a priority.
This method is based on the use of existing databases and a call for proposals open to the general public. It is thus making it possible to draw up lists of health conditions (rare or more frequent) associated with major unmet needs, at both Belgian and European level. These results will contribute to the development of the annual NEED research programme and orientate future research on unmet health-related needs.
This innovative approach could also inspire other institutions interested in assessing unmet needs at national and international level. In Belgium, discussions are already underway to explore how this method could be applied or used as part of the NIHDI's Unmet Medical Need procedure.
