Browsing by Author "Rasanathan, Kumanan"

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    Lenses and levels: the why, what and how of measuring health system drivers of women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health with a governance focus
    (BMJ, 2019) George, Asha; LeFevre, Amnesty Elizabeth; Jacobs, Tanya; Kinney, Mary; Buse, Kent; Chopra, Mickey; Daelmans, Bernadette; Haakenstad, Annie; Huicho, Luis; Khosla, Rajat; Rasanathan, Kumanan; Sanders, David; Singh, Neha S; Tiffin, Nicki; Ved, Rajani; Zaidi, Shehla Abbas; Schneider, Helen
    Health systems are critical for health outcomes as they underpin intervention coverage and quality, promote users’ rights and intervene on the social determinants of health. Governance is essential for health system endeavours as it mobilises and coordinates a multiplicity of actors and interests to realise common goals. The inherently social, political and contextualised nature of governance, and health systems more broadly, has implications for measurement, including how the health of women, children and adolescents health is viewed and assessed, and for whom. Three common lenses, each with their own views of power dynamics in policy and programme implementation, include a service delivery lens aimed at scaling effective interventions, a societal lens oriented to empowering people with rights to effect change and a systems lens concerned with creating enabling environments for adaptive learning. We illustrate the implications of each lens for the why, what and how of measuring health system drivers across micro, meso and macro health systems levels, through three examples (digital health, maternal and perinatal death surveillance and review, and multisectoral action for adolescent health). Appreciating these underpinnings of measuring health systems and governance drivers of the health of women, children and adolescents is essential for a holistic learning and action agenda that engages a wider range of stakeholders, which includes, but also goes beyond, indicator-based measurement. Without a broadening of approaches to measurement and the types of research partnerships involved, continued investments in the health of women, children and adolescents will fall short.
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    The state of health policy and systems research: Reflections from the 2018 5th global symposium
    (Health Policy and Planning, 2019) Hanson, Kara; Rasanathan, Kumanan; George, Asha
    The latest version of this event, the 5th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, took place in Liverpool, UK from 8 to 12 October 2018, and drew 2247 participants from >125 countries—the largest gathering to date of health systems researchers from across the globe. Organized by Health Systems Global (HSG), it took place 40 years after the Alma-Ata Conference on Primary Health Care and 70 years after the creation of the United Kingdom’s National Health Service. The conference theme, Advancing Health Systems for All in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Era, was chosen to echo some of the themes that have shaped health system development since Alma-Ata, and to en- able reflection on the achievements and challenges facing health systems in 2018; but also to draw attention to some of the important ways in which the struggle for ‘health for all’ and the context of health system development has changed in these past 40 years.
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    The state of health policy and systems research: Reflections from the 2018 5th global symposium
    (Health Policy and Planning, 2019) Hanson, Kara; Rasanathan, Kumanan; George, Asha
    The latest version of this event, the 5th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, took place in Liverpool, UK from 8 to 12 October 2018, and drew 2247 participants from >125 countries—the largest gathering to date of health systems researchers from across the globe.Organized by Health Systems Global (HSG), it took place 40 years after the Alma-Ata Conference on Primary Health Care and 70 years after the creation of the United Kingdom’s National Health Service. The conference theme, Advancing Health Systems for All in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Era, was chosen to echo some of the themes that have shaped health system development since Alma-Ata, and to enable reflection on the achievements and challenges facing health systems in 2018; but also to draw attention to some of the important ways in which the struggle for ‘health for all’ and the context of health system development has changed in these past 40 years.