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Health policy and systems research

Context

Well-organized and sustainable health systems are vital to ensure equitable access to effective health interventions. Yet, there is insufficient use of knowledge for enhancing health system performance for two main reasons:

  • there is a gross lack of information on the performance of health systems and on how policies affect performance;
  • even when knowledge is available, it is not necessarily known or used by policy-makers.

Research is a vital tool to support the processes of policy and systems development, implementation and evaluation.

What the Global Forum does

Further to a recommendation by the Ad Hoc Committee on Health Research, the Global Forum formally launched the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research (Alliance HPSR) in March 2000. The Alliance HPSR's secretariat is based at the World Health Organization.

The aim of the Alliance HPSR is to promote the generation, dissemination and use of knowledge for enhancing health system performance.