Why focus on this topic?

For nearly 50 years, the call of “Health for All” has united civil society, governments, grassroots movements, global institutions, researchers, and communities to build health systems that are intersectoral, empowering, and focused on primary care. Answering this call requires politically engaged, creative, and collaborative action that accounts for our rapidly changing world.

How is this research done?

This area of research engages with governments, communities, and research partners in comparative health systems research and implementation research.

• Comparative health systems research enables cross-country learning that highlights innovations and case studies of success to inform strategies in other settings. We upend expert-recipient dynamics and instead identify strategies on how experts in diverse settings have addressed common challenges including on rapid urbanization, climate adaptation, and health system governance.
• Implementation research supports well intentioned policies to result in positive changes on the ground. Embedded, longitudinal research that draws from quantitative and qualitative methodologies, provides implementors with the knowledge and tools needed to unlock the transformative potential of visionary health policies.

What do we expect to find and why does it matter?

The outcomes of this work include implementation strategies and toolkits, policy-oriented workshops, presentations, reports, and briefs, and strengthened ongoing community-based primary health care systems. In identifying drivers of success, we distill learnings to sustain local momentum and transfer promising strategies to other settings grappling with common challenges.