Building Climate-Resilient Health Systems: The Focus of the 2024 Global Health Systems Symposium

Climate change is impacting health and health systems. The health systems in both developed and developing countries must adapt to address the complex challenges posed by climate change, urbanization, biodiversity loss, and pandemics. Strong, climate-resilient and sustainable health systems are important in achieving health for all, which is a goal of Health Systems Global as well as an international goal – as reflected in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). With this in mind, the 8^th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research 2024 (HSR, 2024) focuses on the importance of people-focused health systems which are responding to global change and looking to protect our planet for the future.

HSR 2024 will host a full and diverse program from 18-22 November 2024 in Nagasaki, Japan, through Satellite sessions, Organised sessions, Poster presentations and a Market place. The Satellite sessions will offer a selection of capacity building, topical issue and skills building opportunities, and the Organized sessions will explore current and topical issues hosted by the field’s leading experts. Poster presentations will showcase health policy and systems research from around the world. The exhibitors will promote and share their work at the Marketplace. The Symposium will also arrange social events, receptions and study tours.

The 2024 Symposium is centered around four sub-themes. The first sub-theme “Strengthening health systems for planetary health” emphasizes the need for a concerted effort to build health systems research, policy, and programmatic momentum. The second sub-theme “Advancing justice, inclusion, and belonging in health systems, in times of peace and conflict,” reflects the ongoing need to identify gaps, and strengthen action on inclusivity and belonging to ensure health systems mediate and redress social inequity rather than deepen it. The sub-theme “Health governance, policy, and institutional frameworks for just and sustainable health systems” highlights the need for effective health governance, policy and institutional frameworks in order to create a shared understanding, facilitate coordination and collaboration and encourage accountability. The sub-theme “Knowledge for just health systems” aims to stimulate debate and shared learning around approaches to the production and use of knowledge better aligned with a just and sustainable health system.

We extend a warm welcome to all the potential individuals and enthusiasts to join this unique platform. The Symposium has been designed to encourage all of the sessions to be attractive to our diverse target audiences. This will provide excellent opportunities to engage with fellow delegates, facilitate knowledge acquisition and dissemination around health policy and systems research, gather new knowledge from research findings and networking over learning of research methods and knowledge translation approaches.

The 2024 Symposium will provide ample opportunities to develop capacities for delegates, especially from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), in the use of state-of-the-art tools and resources. HSR 2024 promotes equitable knowledge acquisition and dissemination around health policy and systems research. The Symposium is committed to the highest technical quality and encourages continuous relationship-building to create a positive impact towards developing a climate-resilient health system and achieving health for all.