Beyond the Headline: Understanding Bangladesh’s 325 Retracted Research Papers

What the reported figure tells us, what it does not, and why careful communication matters for research integrity and public trust. Zunayed Al Azdi Senior Research Manager, ARK Foundation Public Health Researcher | Digital Health and Health Systems A recent newspaper investigation reported that 325 research papers linked to Bangladeshi researchers or institutions had been
Read more
No Comments

[Op-Ed] Why are we still struggling to make health insurance work?

By Professor. Rumana Huque Bangladesh has committed itself to achieving universal health coverage (UHC), ensuring that everyone can access necessary health services without suffering financial hardship. Yet, out-of-pocket payments continue to finance most healthcare, forcing families to borrow money, sell assets, or forego treatment altogether. Recognising this challenge, the government’s Health Care Financing Strategy identified
Read more
No Comments

[Op-Ed] Rethinking Bangladesh’s health sector reform after SWAp

Written by Professor Rumana Huque After more than two and a half decades of being in operation, the Health, Population and Nutrition Sector Programme (HPNSP) was discontinued by the interim government last year. Operating under the health ministry since 1998, the HPNSP oversaw basic health, nutrition and family planning services across the country. The concern
Read more
No Comments

[OP-ED] Bangladesh’s next health breakthrough

A mother in a rural village should not have to travel hundreds of kilometres to Dhaka for a service that ought to be available at her local  health facility. Yet this remains the reality for many Bangladeshis. While the country has earned global recognition for reducing maternal and child mortality and expanding immunisation coverage, millions still struggle
Read more
No Comments

The Budget That Shrinks: How Bangladesh’s Health Allocations Disappear Over Time

Download PDF here or read the HTML version Written by Prof. Rumana Huque & Abdullah M. Rafi Every year, Bangladesh announces a new national budget with promises of stronger healthcare, expanded services, and increased investment in public wellbeing. Headlines celebrate larger allocations for the health sector, policymakers speak of reform, and percentages are highlighted to
Read more
No Comments

A Costly Assumption: What Every BDHS Researcher Should Know Before Combining Survey Waves

[PDF Version]  Written by Salina Siddiqua, Dr. S M Abdullah, Dr. Rumana Huque The Growing Importance of BDHS in Bangladesh Research The Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS) has become one of the most influential sources of evidence for health and social science research in Bangladesh. Over the past two decades, BDHS data have been extensively used to
Read more
No Comments

Air Pollution is Changing: The Hidden Climate Risks We are Not Talking About

Read the blog here or download the PDF version Written by Sirat-E-Rowshan Islam (Research Uptake & Communication Officer, ARK Foundation) When we think about air pollution in Bangladesh, we are talking about the same few things: the black smoke from an old bus, the smoggy skyline in winter, nicotine smoke from cigarettes, or the chimneys
Read more
No Comments

When Cities Grow, Movement Shrinks: Urbanisation and Physical Activity in Bangladesh

Find the PDF here Written by Riona Khan and S M Abdullah Imagine a young garment worker in Dhaka. S/he wakes up early, boards a crowded bus, sits for long hours at a sewing machine, returns home exhausted, and spends the evening indoors. The day is full for them, but physically, they have barely moved. Conversely, imagine
Read more
No Comments

The Karlson-Holm-Breen (KHB) Method: Why Logistic Mediation Results Might Be Misleading?

Read pdf here Written by Ibrahim Hasan and S M Abdullah A simple story with a built-in complicated problem Assume being a health researcher, you are studying health inequality. Particularly, you are interested to know the non-communicable disease (NCD) outcome status due to educational attainment exposure. Your preliminary logistic regression results showed that people with
Read more
No Comments

Fragmentation in urban health service provision? A plurality of providers is the answer

Read it here or download PDF  Abdullah Rafi, from ARK Foundation in Bangladesh, discusses how the perceived fragmentation of urban healthcare in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) should be viewed as a symptom of unmanaged plurality rather than a system failure. The majority of the world’s population is now urbanised, with 55% of humanity currently
Read more
No Comments