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The Health Systems Impact Modelling project
This online community of practice emerges from a larger programme of work supported by the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research at WHO, with funding from the Gates Foundation and support from Health Systems Global.
The programme began with a scoping review examining existing approaches and past experiences related to health systems modelling. This review revealed a critical gap: while disease-specific modelling has advanced considerably, few studies have estimated the impact of health systems interventions across multiple disease programs, and even fewer have integrated modelling into actual policy processes in a way that demonstrably influenced decision-making.
Following the scoping review, the Alliance convened a series of consultations with policymakers and health systems modellers across low- and middle-income countries. These consultations explored both the appetite for using modelling to inform health systems decisions and the practical barriers to doing so. The insights from these discussions informed the design of a competitive call for proposals issued in 2024.
The call sought research teams who could co-create and apply health systems modelling approaches to address policymaker questions in their countries. Following external peer review, three research teams were selected in late 2024, each receiving support for a two-year project (October 2024 – October 2026).
Health Systems Global (HSG) and The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research are partnering on this project until December 2026.
The Alliance has formed a Health System Impact Modelling Consortium of HPSR researchers to develop modelling approaches to measure the impact of health systems strengthening (HSS) interventions on essential health services in three countries: Indonesia, Kenya and Ethiopia.
The Alliance aims to facilitate the use of these modelling approaches in informing health systems resource allocation decisions in selected low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), so The Alliance is collaborating with HSG to promote engagement with wider stakeholders to exchange hands-on experiences and foster dissemination of best practices.
Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology
Using system dynamics modelling to understand how investments in the newly launched Community Health Promoter programme translate into improved service delivery outcomes. The government has, for the first time, committed to providing monthly remuneration to 100,000 community health workers. The team is working with Kenya’s Ministry of Health to examine how alternative policy options—addressing challenges like workload, incentives, supplies, and geographic disparities—could improve effectiveness across maternal health, child health, and chronic disease management.
Bahir Dar University
Identifying health system bottlenecks in NCD management. The team is employing microsimulation and cascade analysis using extensive national survey data (3.5 million individual records) to model how different packages of interventions—including WHO PEN recommendations, risk-based screening, task shifting, multi-month dispensing, and telemedicine—could maximize quality, equity, and cost-effectiveness in cardiovascular disease prevention across Indonesia.
ARC Institute Indonesia
Identifying health system bottlenecks in NCD management. The team is employing microsimulation and cascade analysis using extensive national survey data (3.5 million individual records) to model how different packages of interventions—including WHO PEN recommendations, risk-based screening, task shifting, multi-month dispensing, and telemedicine—could maximize quality, equity, and cost-effectiveness in cardiovascular disease prevention across Indonesia.
Each team is working with a national consortium of policymakers, Ministry of Health officials, and development partners. These consortia play a crucial role in ensuring research questions remain aligned with policy priorities, facilitating access to national data systems, and identifying windows of opportunity where research findings could influence actual decisions. This approach represents a deliberate effort to embed modelling within policy processes rather than conducting it in isolation.
Project findings will be shared through multiple channels beginning in mid-2026. This will include peer-reviewed publications, national policy briefs and stakeholder workshops in each country, cross-national synthesis of lessons learned, and engagement with global health initiatives. Beyond producing individual country results, the programme aims to establish sustainable learning ecosystems where modelling approaches become routinely used to inform health systems policy and practice.
The experiences, methodologies, and insights from these three country studies will be documented and shared through this community of practice, contributing to the broader global effort to advance health systems modelling as a tool for improving health systems performance.
