New Report: Discussions and debates around primary health care, reaching the unreached, and financial protection during the 6th Global Symposia on Health Systems Research 2020
By Dr. Kerry Scott, Dr. Veena Sriram, Dr. Mark Kabue, Dr. Marta Schaaf, Dr. Stephanie Topp, Dr. Diwakar Mohan
HSG, with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), commissioned this report to capture discussions and debates around primary health care (PHC), including reaching the unreached and ensuring financial protection, during the 6th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research. HSR2020 was a space where cutting-edge research, current policy debates, and community voices intersect to shape PHC research agendas, activist demands, and, ultimately, health policies and programs.
Content from 217 presentations, spread across three plenaries, 78 oral sessions, and 18 satellite sessions, and 326 posters has been synthesized into this report, and grouped according to the three pillars of primary healthcare: (A) healthcare services, (B) broader intersectoral determinants of health, and (C) governance and participation. The focus within each pillar has been placed upon funding, policy, and practice relevant lessons, with particular attention to equity and the role of measurement in tracking and facilitating progress.
Key Findings and Recommendations
A) Healthcare Service Provision
Improving healthcare service provision
- Political will is needed to improve service provision
- Reactive policies and fragmented health system components undermine PHC
- Accountability and monitoring are required to improve service provision
Improving data and measurement in the health systems
- Match efforts to improve data quality with improving data accessibility and stakeholder engagement
- Measurement and governance go hand in hand
- Routine measurement systems are not good at capturing information on service quality
- HSR2020 drew attention to new healthcare service measurement tools, indicators, data collection methods, tools, reporting systems, and frameworks
- Political interests and technical strategies influence the comparability of measures across countries
Financial protection and cost-effectiveness
- While technical aspects of health financing reform matter, it is equally important to overcome political and institutional challenges
- Political and institutional considerations to improving financial protection
- Strong accountability and governance must be embedded in health insurance programs or PBF strategies to improve both equity and cost-effectiveness
B) The Broader Determinants of Health
Improving broader determinants of health
- Innovations in integrating PHC and social needs
- Complex governance mechanisms limit the ability to address intersecting needs in informal settlements
- Policy and programs for refugees and migrants must be multisectoral and holistic
- Gender is insufficiently integrated into policy and programs across a wide range of health and social issues
- Develop institutional and governance arrangements to facilitate multisectoral action
- Policy studies identified political and structural factors needed to improve broader determinants of health
Measuring broader determinants of health
- Need for better integration on non-health sectors in PHC research
- Measurement tools to examine inequity across sectors
- Promising examples of measuring and addressing social need in PHC programs
- Frameworks used to explore broader determinants of health
- Poor availability of systems to routinely capture data on broader determinants of health
C) Empowerment and Participation
Fostering empowerment and improving participation in health
- Strategies for improving empowerment must arise from an understanding of the drivers of disempowerment
Measurement of empowerment and participation
Good and timely report . How could get the full reports. I am working currently PHC in 12 Urban area under USAID funded LHSS project.
Abu the report is posted on the website . Please see section “ Download and read the ‘Discussions and debates around primary health care, reaching the unreached, and financial protection’.” above on this page.
Very relevant in making Primary Health Care a reality