Health Systems Cluster
The Health System Cluster works on health and development challenges that affect the lives of vulnerable and marginalised populations.
Where we work
The cluster's research takes place in settings that experience shocks and stressors. These relate to conflict, political and social unrest, climate change and economic hardship.
We have strong partnerships in the Middle East and Caucasus, South-East Asia, West and Southern Africa and Latin America. We have recently also started working in high-income countries, including in Scotland.
Across projects, we collaborate closely with local stakeholders. These include: government, health system and care professionals, private and not-for-profit organisations, to traditional care providers, community-based organisations, and civil society.
Research themes
Our research projects interrogate the root causes behind global health and development problems. Our work produces new knowledge for how to achieve health and wellbeing, and how to advance equity and social justice.
Themes that the cluster focuses on include fragility and resilience, service delivery for migrant and displaced populations, health financing, human resources for health, community-health system connections, and management of chronic illness, including tuberculosis, non-communicable diseases, and mental health. Recently, we have also focused on climate change and hope to grow research on this theme.
Team
We have an interdisciplinary team. Our staff are experts in health policy and systems research, health financing and economics, governance and political economy, systems thinking and modelling, behaviour change, sociology and anthropology. We work alongside colleagues in IGHD's Psychological Wellbeing, Integration and Protection (PIP) Cluster.
- Research projects
- Cluster members
- Balancing Safety and Good Care during Infectious Disease Outbreaks in Uganda (BASYC)
- ReBUILD for Resilience (R4R)
- NIHR Research Unit for Health in Situations of Fragility
- Health system and community responses to COVID-19 among Palestine refugees: UNWRA
- The Political Economy of Universal Health Coverage reforms: building capacity and engagement of francophone West Africa
- Verbal Autopsy with Participation Action Research (VAPAR)
- REDRESS: Reducing the Burden of Stigmatising Skin Diseases
- Co-Voices web application
- Addressing Gaps in Men's Health Literacy and Health Seeking in Mozambique
- Addressing the need for locally-relevant evidence in public health decision-making (LEAD)
- Whole systems care for post-stroke management in China
- Infection control for drug-resistant TB in decentralised care: Umoya omuhle
- Develop interventions to reduce barriers to treatment adherence in TB patients: IMPACT
- Designing and evaluating provider results-based financing for TB care in Georgia (Results4TB)
- Optimizing health systems to improve delivery of decentralised care for patients with drug resistant tuberculosis
- A Household Yeast Biosensor for Cholera
- UNHCR | Health System Resilience, Enhancement, and Refugee Response Project
- Ethnography of Health Facilities
- Dr Karin Diaconu (Cluster Lead)
- Ms Amina Olabi (Cluster Coordinator)
- Professor Sophie Witter
- Dr Maria Paola Bertone
- Dr Georgina Pearson
- Professor Daniel Reidpath
- Dr Luciana Brondi
- Dr Natasha Palmer
- Dr Paul Kadetz
- Dr Ibrahim Bou-Orm
- Dr Esther Azasi
Our Honorary Staff and Doctoral Students