Achievements
Key achievements
Since its inception, the Alliance has come a long way in furthering its goals and has transformed the field in terms of building its methodological foundations, capacity strengthening and widening its policy influence.
Developed the field
HPSR is a relatively new field and the Alliance has invested significant resources in building and expanding its scope. The Alliance has produced readers and guidance on HPSR and on specific methodologies. We also have a long track record of publishing flagship reports that advance and help to frame the field.
Strengthened capacities
Prior to 1996, there was little capacity to generate policy relevant HPSR in the research community, especially in LMICs. There was even less capacity to obtain and leverage evidence for stronger health systems among policy-makers and development partners. Over the years, Alliance has invested in thousands of young researchers, especially women in LMICs, strengthening their capacities to design, conduct and disseminate HPSR.
Steered a movement
The Alliance has not transformed the HPSR landscape on its own. To create and guide the HPSR movement, the Alliance has identified and collaborated with many allies and partners, including more than 300 policy and research institutions. The establishment of Health Systems Global (HSG) was a critical milestone for the field, a membership society that hosts biennial symposia on health systems research, which the Alliance continues to co-sponsor.Changed mindsets
The Alliance has challenged the prevailing mindset of most health researchers that traditional biomedical standards, such as hypothesis testing and randomized control trials, should also apply to health policy and systems research. The Alliance has promoted more context-specific, process-oriented and responsive problem-solving approaches for HPSR, advancing the idea that there is a diversity and “goodness of fit” between different research approaches that can be used to solve different problems, and that multiple methods are often needed.Driven impact
Over the years, the Alliance’s projects and programmes have influenced changes in policies and practices, strengthened health systems, and driven population health impacts in diverse LMIC settings. In several instances, these changes have been brought about directly - by supporting the generation of evidence relevant to decision-makers’ needs and stimulating the increased use of evidence for health systems and policies. Recent instances of such impact include:
- Supporting India’s national health authority to improve the implementation of the National Health Protection Scheme (PM-JAY)
- Improving immunization coverage in Ogun State, Nigeria through participatory action research on implementation barriers
- Helping serve the energy needs of remote health facilities in Ghana and Uganda through research on intersectoral collaboration
Apart from the directly attributable impacts, the Alliance’s contributions have also influenced health outcomes indirectly – by strengthening individual and institutional capacities to generate and use HPSR, through the development of useful methods, tools and guidance, and by catalysing strategic partnerships and collaborations. These non-linear pathways of influence are captured through exemplary narrative stories of change: