Health policy and systems research (HPSR) seeks to understand and improve how societies organize themselves in achieving collective health goals, and how different actors interact in the policy and implementation processes to contribute to policy outcomes.
The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research defines HPSR as interdisciplinary – a blend of economics, sociology, anthropology, political science, public health and epidemiology that together draw a comprehensive picture of how health systems respond and adapt to health policies, and how health policies can shape, and be shaped by, health systems and the broader determinants of health.