Book Launch: Systems Thinking for Global Health

Join us for this launch to find out more about how systems thinking can contribute to solving key challenges in global health.

Date: 28 February 2023

Time: 11am CET

Register here.

Summary

How can systems-thinking be used in Global Health research, policy and practice? Systems thinking is an approach used to make sense of complex issues by considering the wider relationships and interactions that are involved. It can be used to explore and identify effective solutions to ‘wicked problems’ in global health, by enabling systems change.

This textbook brings together an extensive range of ideas from authors across the globe in different Global Health disciplines. Learn about complex health issues spanning from infectious disease outbreaks to community health worker programmes, war and conflict, and mental health, and how they can be looked at using a systems-thinking lens.

The authors delve into specific tools and strategies for approaching systems thinking, as well as outlining limitations to the approach. This virtual book launch  aims to introduce the textbook’s relevance in our current globalised, ever-changing world and explore how it can be applied in your own work or studies. Hear from the editors how the book came about, and how the 27 chapters evolved.

There will be plenty of opportunity for audience Q&A with the editors and the SYSTAC European Hub.  Register for the webinar here.

The textbook can be found via Oxford Press in paperback or as an Ebook. 

Become a member of the SYSTAC European Hub!

For more information, contact us at dell.saulnier@med.lu.se or karl.blanchet@unige.ch.

Volunteer Job Opening

Are you a junior researcher? Are you interested in supporting others in systems thinking? The SySTAC European Hub is looking for a team of driven junior and early-stage researchers to create and design a support forum for systems thinking for health systems. The forum is expected to be a place for young researchers to build confidence in their systems thinking practice by developing soft skills and technical skills through peer support. More information and application link to this volunteer position is available here.

Webinar: Health system resilience – framing, debates and latest evidence as we start to emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic

Tuesday, 7 June 2022, 13:00 – 14:30 CEST

The recording of this webinar can be viewed here.

This round-table discussion by some of the top thinkers in the field provided critical reflections on the concept and application of resilience in health systems research, including rethinking in the light of COVID-19. The webinar was co-hosted by ReBUILD for Resilience and the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies.

The panel, chaired by Professor Sophie Witter, co-Research Director for ReBUILD for Resilience, included:

Karl Blanchet is a Humanitarian Public Health and Health Systems Research Professor at the University of Geneva and Director of the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies. Karl is also the co-Chair of the SYSTAC European Hub.

Edwine Barasa is the director of the KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Nairobi programme, heads its Health Economics Research Unit (HERU) and is a visiting professor of health economics at the University of Oxford.

Rifat Atun is a Professor of Health Systems at Harvard University and the Health Systems Innovation Lab Director at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. The first strand of his research focuses on health systems performance and the design, implementation and evaluation of health system reforms. The second strand analyses innovation in health systems.”

Gina Teddy is a Lecturer and has been the co-chair for the teaching and Learning TWG for Health Systems Global since 2018. She is the founder and former Coordinator of the Centre for Health Systems and Policy Research (CHESPOR) at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA). Gina is a health systems practitioner and an implementation researcher with a particular interest in promoting HPSR across the African Region.

Steve Thomas is the Edward Kennedy Chair of Health Policy and Management and the Director of Health Policy and Engagement for the School of Medicine at Trinity College Dublin. He is also a Health Research Board Research Leader with his RESTORE programme, focused on health system resilience and reform. He led the Trinity team in support of the Oireachtas Committee for the Future of Healthcare and its production of Slaintecare, now the Irish government’s chief health reform programme.

Mickey Chopra is a lead health specialist at the World Bank, and global solutions lead on service delivery. An important strand of this work on service delivery has been on how to adapt service delivery in challenging settings, especially in conflict and post-conflict settings.

Alastair Ager is Emeritus Professor of Institute for Global Health and Development, QMU, Edinburgh: His work has focused on health systems resilience in contexts of fragility, including those impacted by conflict, forced displacement and climate change.

Stephanie Topp is an Associate Professor of Global Health and Development at James Cook University in Australia and on the Board of Directors of Health Systems Global.  Her research and teaching focus on health workforce governance with a particular focus on how power, accountability and trust influence health policies, systems and service delivery.

The recording of this webinar can be viewed here.

Troubling partnerships in capacity development: What lessons for systems thinking?

Monday 23 May 2022, 13:00 – 14:00 CEST

View the presentation of Magnus Hagelsteen here.

What do receiving partners see as the main challenges to capacity development projects? In this webinar, presenter Magnus Hagelsteen, Capacity development research, and director of the Master in Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation at Lund University described the capacities needed for sustainable capacity development projects and seven typologies of failure. He also discussed their relevance to systems thinking capacity development projects. More information about the paper on which the presentation was based is available here.

Webinar: Systems approaches to strengthening health system resilience: Key concepts and lessons from COVID-19.

The seminar presented the key concepts of health system resilience and stages of a shock as they relate to systems thinking, and discussed strategies for building resilience from the evidence and lessons learned during COVID-19 in the European region.

Facilitators: Dr Dell Saulnier and Dr Daniel Cobos, Co.Leads of the SYSTAC European Hub

Prof. Steve Thomas Trinity College Dublin. Prof. Thomas is the Edward Kennedy Professor of Health Policy and Management and Director of Health Policy and Engagement for the School of Medicine. He is the lead author of the ’Strengthening health systems resilience: Key concepts and strategies’ report from the European Observatory.

Anna Sagan London School of Economics and Political Science. Anna is a Research Fellow at LSE and an Honorary Research Fellow at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Her research areas include health system resilience, health insurance, and health system value. She is the Editor of the ’Health systems resilience during COVID-19: Lessons for building back better’ report from the European Observatory.

Call to be peer publication supporters

We are pleased to launch a call to be peer publication supporters to informally review and provide feedback for abstracts, paper outlines or first draft manuscripts before they are formally submitted to a journal. We expect each of you to review one manuscript or an outline of a manuscript.

Currently, there is an open call for papers for Systems thinking: strengthening health systems in practice Systems thinking: strengthening health systems in practice, which is due on 31 March 2022.  Peer supporters and authors could use this workshop to fine-tune their manuscripts before submission to this journal or any other.

KEY DATES:

  • If you agree to be a volunteer for the peer publication support, we request you to express your interest by Friday 21 January 2022 
  • For those who wish to submit an abstract, paper outlines or first draft manuscript for review, please do so by Friday 28 January 2022. 
  • To those who volunteered to be peer publication supporters, you will receive your review assignment by Friday 4 February 2022.
  • By Friday 18 February, we request the peer publication supporters to send their reviews
  • Submission to the journal: 31 March 2022