Since the watershed moment of the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the concept of health system resilience has been a recurring theme in global health discussions.  Although most frequently used in the context of epidemic response, resilience has also been framed as a ‘key pillar’ of health, and invoked in high-level calls for countries ...

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...

The Vancouver Health Systems Research Symposium (with its theme: Resilience and responsive health systems for a changing world) is long over – but resilience is everywhere, in academic, practitioner and policy literature (e.g. Kruk et al; Witter & Hunter; and statements by the WHO Director Generals immediately past, and newly inducted). Perhap...

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...

The Lancet Global Health Commission on High Quality Health Systems in the SDG Era (HQSS Commission) was launched two weeks ago drawing attention to the fact that access to healthcare, in and of itself, is not sufficient to meet the (health part of the) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).  Rather, it is access to high quality healthcare that w...

As the Reachout consortium reminded us in a series of well tweeted-about presentations at Prince Mahidol Award Conference (PMAC) 10 days ago, community health workers (CHW) need to be a centerpiece of human resource for health (HRH) policies targeting health equity, effectiveness and efficiency via universal health coverage (UHC).  Their work i...

After several years of consultation, the SDG agenda was launched last week with much fanfare in New York.  Amongst the various health-related targets established by the forthcoming Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target 3.c aims to: substantially increase health financing and the recruitment, development, training and retention of the heal...

Steph (@globalstopp) is Health Systems Advisor at the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ) and Research Associate with the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She was a 2013 Emerging Voice and is lead facilitator for the 2014 Emerging Voices online discussion relating to people centred care. She is also a co-facilitator for ...