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.

The 8th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (HSR 2024) will be held in Nagasaki, Japan, from November 18 to 22, 2024.

LHSS partnered with colleagues working as part of the USAID MTaPS project to document a practical approach that countries can use to track pharmaceutical expenditure (PE) using the System of Health Accounts (SHA) 2011 framework. This resource contributes to efforts by the World Health Organization to develop global guidance on tracking of PE.

LHSS conducted a study of 37 countries to provide a better understanding of the strengths, opportunities, and gaps in the structures governing the provision of quality health services.

This report details case studies from Rwanda and Zambia which offer unique insights into the operationalization of National Quality Policies and Strategy (NQPS) within broader governance and quality of care reforms.

This brief focuses on how pooling arrangements—the way countries combine funding from different sources to spread the financial risk of needing to pay for health services—can be improved to accelerate progress toward UHC.

In a municipality where over 100,000 people had no access to basic health services, stakeholders joined together to open a primary health center that now serves thousands of households.  

LHSS presents on health budget execution at the Montreux Collaborative on Fiscal Space, Public Financial Management and Health Financing, November 13-17, 2023.

The Most Significant Change (MSC) is a complexity-aware monitoring approach that helps us track and understand important changes happening in systems, practices, organizations, and people. LHSS Bangladesh has applied this MSC tool to identify, evaluate, and understand the most substantial changes within our primary health care system functions. 

LHSS along with speakers from USAID and WHO reflected on strategies to ensure reliable funding for costing the planning, design, implementation, and evaluation of a National Quality Policy and Strategy (NQPS).

This brief includes a global evidence review of DFS for health conducted by LHSS and an analysis of two programmatic case studies of DFS for health by Management Sciences for Health (MSH) through the Digital Square initiative.

LHSS Bnagladesh is helping to identify and implement localized solutions to ensure that urban residents can access and afford high-quality primary health care services.

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 presents what LHSS has learned through applying a systems thinking approach to its support for HSCs’ advocacy efforts in expanding PHC services in urban Bangladesh.

This learning brief can be used as a resource for HRH managers, planners, program managers, and frontline practitioners to learn how other countries are approaching and successfully designing and implementing solutions to their HRH challenges. It can also be used as a reference for health policy makers, funders, and implementing partners to inform the design and implementation of HRH resource optimization initiatives covered in this brief.