With increased migration around the world posing unique challenges and opportunities for health systems, efforts to better integrate and include migrants and host communities in national health systems are an integral part of the global health equity agenda. 

This brief describes opportunities to improve financial protection programs using behavior change approaches. The Practice Spotlights Social and Behavior Change series supports USAID’s Vision for Health System Strengthening 2030 by exploring how social and behavior change approaches can contribute to countries’ health system strengthening efforts.

This brief introduces the social determinants of health (SDOH) concept and terminology, and discusses approaches to addressing SDOH. Understanding these root causes of health inequities and their impact on health care access, quality, and equity is crucial to strengthening health systems.

This two-pager focuses on USAID’s Learning Question 6, "What are key behavioral outcomes that indicate a functioning, integrated health system? In what ways can integrated health system strengthening approaches explicitly include social and behavior change?"

This two-pager focuses on USAID’s Learning Question 4, “What are effective and sustainable mechanisms or processes to integrate local, community, sub-national, national, and regional voices, priorities, and contributions into USAID’s health system strengthening efforts?”

The video showcases the success of peer learning events held in the Sylhet and Rajshahi regions, where city corporations and district municipalities came together to share experiences and discuss different approaches to strengthening primary health care.

This video highlights the collaborative efforts between LHSS and six district municipalities from Sylhet and Rajshahi divisions to strengthen primary health care systems in urban Bangladesh.

In this video, discover how local organizations in Cali work to strengthen capacity, promote sustainability, and improve access to health information related to the country’s health system.

To strengthen capacities and promote equitable access to the Colombian health care system, LHSS and the Healthy Communities program forged several high-impact partnerships in Bogotá. These partnerships focused on supporting the integration process of the migrant population, host communities, and returning Colombians into the country’s health system. This video highlights beneficiaries and partners impacted by this effort.

This brief highlights the recent shifts in health systems practice toward more explicitly incorporating an SBC lens in social accountability activities that aim to improve overall health system performance and address inequities. The brief synthesizes the growing body of evidence on the role social accountability plays in increasing accessibility to better-quality health care services and uses case studies and lessons learned to highlight how SBC approaches can be more explicitly integrated into this aspect of HSS programming.

This brief builds on the USAID Local Health System Sustainability Project (LHSS) Strengthening Governance report (2022) and global National Quality Policy and Strategy (NQPS) survey, aiming to provide practical examples and considerations for country practitioners to consider on their quality journeys. It includes case studies of three countries that have used NQPS to mobilize and align resources for quality.

USAID Local Health System Sustainability Project (LHSS) in Bangladesh works with 14 local government institutions (LGIs) to improve primary health care for urban poor! Watch how LHSS helped Habiganj Municipality to transform an abandoned building into a fully functional primary health care center, serving over 100,000 people in need!  

The USAID Health System Sustainability Activity in Timor-Leste continues to support the Ministry of Health in strengthening the existing community health system and expanding the CBM-Health approach to additional villages.

This two-pager focuses on USAID’s Learning Question 1, “What are the contributions of systems thinking approaches and tools to changes in health system outcomes? How do systems thinking approaches affect health system outcomes?”

This two-pager focuses on USAID’s Learning Question 5, “What are effective and sustainable mechanisms or processes that enable the participation of private sector, civil society, and public organizations in developing locally-led solutions to improve high-performing health care, especially for poor and vulnerable populations? What enables the effective participation or leadership of marginalized populations themselves in the development and implementation of these solutions? Under what conditions is this participation different?”