Health Systems Cluster
IGHD promotes research that embodies critical thinking and principles of social justice, in order to address the health and development of vulnerable and marginalised populations globally. IGHD’s Health Systems Cluster conducts health systems research with a focus on health inequality, social determinants of health and progress towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
Many of the Health Systems Cluster’s projects are carried out in fragile and shock-affected settings, looking at fragility and its linkage to the resilience of health systems. Additionally, we are also exploring the interlinkages between mobility and migration, in relation to health systems serving displaced populations. Our work has focused on health financing, human resources for health, community-health system connections, gender and equity, and management of chronic illness, including tuberculosis, non-communicable diseases and mental health.
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Cluster
- Professor Alastair Ager
- Professor Sophie Witter
- Dr Karina Kielmann
- Dr Karin Diaconu
- Dr Maria Paola Bertone
- Jennifer Falconer
- Dr Stella Arakelyan
- Dr Kanykey Jailobaeva
- Dr Georgina Pearson
- Giulia Loffreda
- Gimenne Zwama
- Dr Guangyang Zou
Our Honorary Staff and Doctoral Students
Our impact
Our team is heavily engaged with the UK Department for International Development-funded ReBUILD consortium. ReBUILD’s work is focused in Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Uganda and Cambodia.
Other recent and ongoing health systems work has been funded by:
-the World Health Organisation (WHO)
-the Medical Research Council (MRC)
-the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
-the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
These have addressed issues ranging from human resources for health in Africa, to analysis of systems resilience in the Middle-East and strategies supporting poverty alleviation in Asia.
Doctoral students contribute to the work of the Institute significantly in this thematic area, with recent and ongoing research in Ghana, India, China and Peru.
Research projects title
- NIHR Research Unit for Health in Situations of Fragility
- ReBUILD for Resilience (R4R)
- 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 ohmule
- 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
- Ethnography of Health Facilities
The Health Systems Cluster’s research builds on strong partnerships at the regional level in the Middle East and Caucasus, South-East Asia, West and Southern Africa and Latin America. We have an interdisciplinary team with expertise in health economics, policy analysis and political economy, health systems modelling, behaviour change, sociology and anthropology, and often work in collaboration with IGHD's Psychological Wellbeing, Integration and Protection (PIP) Cluster.
Our team is engaged with the UK’s National Institute of Health Research (NIHR), in particular through the Research Unit on Health in Situations of Fragility (RUHF), and with the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID) through the Rebuild for Resilience (R4R) project. Other recent and ongoing work has been funded by the World Health Organisation (WHO), Medical Research Council (MRC), Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the National Institute for Health.
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