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 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.

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.

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.

Civil society organizations in Timor-Leste are playing important roles to identify health system problems and solutions, contribute ideas to the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) annual action plan, and participate in monitoring that holds the government accountable.

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?”

This video shares the testimonials and progress made on the collaborative work achieved between territorial entities and community-based organizations as a result of the capacity-building process carried out by the Healthy Communities program to promote the inclusion of the migrant population in Colombia's general social security system in health.

Uniéndose, las organizaciones locales y regionales están trazando un camino adelante para mejorar el acceso a la atención médica para las mujeres y otros migrantes vulnerables en Honduras.

Joining together, local and regional organizations are plotting a way forward to improve health care access for women and other vulnerable migrants in Honduras. 

Colombia ha emergido como líder en la elaboración de políticas que integran a los migrantes a la economía y la sociedad, garantizan su derecho universal a la salud y movilizan recursos nacionales para cumplir con la creciente demanda de servicios de salud.

Photo essay presented at the 7th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, November 2022.