Health systems are growing in importance through the world, with profound impacts on population health and well-being and national economies and polities. The Health Systems Cluster in the Department of Global Health and Population coordinates faculty, researchers, and staff members in GHP in a common mission of improving the performance of health systems globally, in specific countries, and in localities and programs.
Cluster members are leaders in research on a wide range of health system issues at macro, meso, and micro levels of the health system. Highlights of our contributions include:
- Development and application of widely used analytical methods for measuring health systems performance and its determinants, for example health status measures such as DALYs, health financing metrics such as national health accounts, measures of health system quality, and applied political analysis;
- Creation of a universal framework for thinking about and learning about health systems, published in Roberts, et al Getting Health Reform Right: A Guide to Improving Performance and Equity (Oxford, 2006) and the basis for a global training and education that has reached more than 20,000 students of health systems around the world;
- Impactful collaboration with colleagues in on national health reform in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe, working closely with senior officials to develop and evaluate real world reforms. This includes areas such as guiding political strategy for health reform, health care financing and health insurance, improving provider payment, better priority setting, strengthening health care quality, and innovations in service delivery through behavioral interventions .
The GHP Health Systems Cluster leads the departments education initiatives in global health systems for research and professional masters and doctoral students. The Cluster’s Health Systems specialization in Harvard Chan’s doctoral program train future leaders in, academic and research institutions, health ministries, international agencies and civil society organizations for the tasks required to develop new knowledge to understand and strengthen health systems.
The health systems cluster is also actively engaged in educating professionals throughout their working life cycle. Continuing and executive education includes programs aimed at Ministers, top government officials, and professionals from different types of organizations and health systems roles. These include the Ministerial Leadership in Health initiative, the Flagship Course on Health Sector Reform and Sustainable Financing (in collaboration with the World Bank Institute), executive education courses at HSPH, and many national courses.
