American Indian scholar Maria Yellow Horse Brave Heart developed the concept of historical trauma in relation to the cumulative emotional harm of colonialism. The term has since been applied to the legacies of slavery, genocide, and war as well. These events reverberate through generations, whether through social processes or epigenetics, leadi...

Several recent prominent global health events – the Health Systems Research Symposium in Liverpool, and the Women Leaders in Global Health event in London among them – demonstrated interest in the role of power in health systems and in health systems research.  A group of interested researchers and practitioners affiliated with SHAPES (Soci...

Earlier this week, a group of 30 researchers, program implementers, and activists met in Washington, DC, to develop a research agenda on “community health worker voice, power, and citizens’ right to health.” The meeting was convened by Columbia University’s Averting Maternal Death and Disability Program and American University’s Accoun...

    “We don’t want anything. We don’t need a single rupee or tea but only do something on water and give us drinking water”. – Hiren(a pseudonym), male, village health, sanitation and nutrition committee members, rural northern India   While conducting an implementation research study in a marginalized area of northern India, on the impleme...

How do we manage disparity? I’m not talking about the recommendations we make in our reports on the social determinants and how to address healthcare inequality. I’m talking about how we live our lives. Our work is full of accounts of injustice. While there are success stories, policy victories and research breakthroughs, our work is often s...

The 20 KEYSTONE course participants are now back in their offices, campuses, clinics and research sites, scattered across India. They are beginning to digest the material presented over the two-week course (23 February to 5 March 2015), which began by asking “what is a policy?” and ended by examining the relationship between creating health ...