What is meaning on "reverse innovation"?

An innovation is called reverse when first developed for and adopted in the developing world (or emerging world, for example China) before "spreading" to a more developped economy  (Ramamurti and Govindarajan, 2011)

I take mdia life expectancy as a measure ofth Health system of a nation. However, natons divere in wealth so it is fair to relate median life expectancy with GNP. Nations with a high GNP usually have a high medianlife expectancy, You also shoudl take medianlife expectancy for the two genders as women usually live some years longer tanmen. I my reserach I have described the challange that Denmark has a much shorter median life expectancy than Sweden and Norway. In the period from 1990 to 2000 Health system in Denmark was focused on the lacking behind of Dnmrk. Use of Tobacco was taken as explanation for the differenc. Denmark had less regulation than Sweden and Noray. So Denmark decided to take up regulaion o Tobacco like Norway and Seden. Now 2015, the lqcking behind in Denmark has been reduced.

A good example of reverse Health was a pubication in Scientfic American where they claimed that median life expectancy in one of the poor Arican countries had a higher median liife expectancy han Black popltion in inner ities of the US. The article in Scientific American argued that it was due toregularory effect from the state were theAfrican state putmore effort on equility and state regulation than state regulation in iner cities of the USA. The low mdian life extctancy in these areas of USA i largeky due to killing of Young and adults.

I think this is a good example and Icomplimet you for the interest in this relatively ignored field of research

I think you need to define innovation first, and think about what are measures of innovation.  I have been thinking about innovation in a diverse, large non-health system and find that it is difficult to define innovation.

I think it depends on which aspect of reverse innovation you are hoping to capture. Is it about:

• the number of examples of reverse innovation that have occurred?
• the extent to which successful innovations from developing countries have been taken up by developed countries (versus the extent to which the opportunities have not been taken up)?
• the number of times reverse innovation has been tried, and succeeded?
• the ratio of reverse innovation to non-reverse innovation?
• etc, etc.

Cheers,

Janet

Thank you all for your anwers, helps a lot!

The fne thing about median life expectancy is that it is measured all over the World. It is available for small areas and for Whole nations. It is regularly measure with decimal so it is rather exact. The information is available from many websites.

The question was not to define innt to define innovation but to find a proxy for measuring the effect of innovation,

Thank you both for yours answers. Indeed diffusion and adoption are pertinent but I believe that the novelty of the reverse innovation concept is precisely to capture the way innovations are diffusing (from "developing" economies to more "developed" economies) which is not the usual way. 

Your question made me think of the evolution of acceptance of acupuncture and herbs in western medicine.  We now have a culture where alternative medicine has a role in treatment of chronic pain and illness, something that didn't exist widely in 1970s.  I think that culture plays a role in the reverse innovation process.  Your idea of reverse innovation may actually be diffusion of innovation, where the developing nations have innovated a solution that has applicability in the develop nations.  The language of "reverse innovation" seems a bit negative and implies change brought by developing nations is not innovative, when in fact system change may be an innovation.

Some references that may assist you in your reflection:

Turning the World Upside Down: the search for global health in the 21st century, Nigel Crisp

http://www.enablingchange.com.au/Summary_Diffusion_Theory.pdf

Diffusion of Innovations, by Everett M. Rogers

The more one learns about theories of innovation, invention, diffusion, the less these seem to be measurable or worth measuring.  It is certainly worth establishing environments that foster innovation and diffusion of innovations.  The literature on innovation and invention - and there are some nice popular books on the subject such as Walter Isaacson's book "The Innovators" about the invention of computers and the internet, make the point that inventions usually are not an individual effort despite our desire to 

Let us not get confused. The question is defining innovation,make it measurable, and define outcom related to the innovation, make it quantifiable, and calculate the association from innovation to outcome.

So thank you for efforts in this field. My best wishes

 And thank you for your efforts.  The book on Diffusion of Innovation by Everett Rogers referred to in a previous post by Diana Luan is worth reading if you haven't already.  Though the quantification question is interesting, if one is ultimately interested in change, the focus should be on finding and diffusing innovations.  Just knowing that the innovations can come from anywhere and that in an age of globalization, we are likely to see innovations evolve across the world, is sufficient for me.  

Thank you all very much for your answers and advices. Very helpful!