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. 

The 2024 USAID Global Gender Equality Conference will take place in Washington D.C. from May 20-23.

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

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 technical guidance document provides a summary of principal findings that highlight those complex factors including a literature review, surveys, resource mapping, case studies including key informant interviews, and the development of a theory of change.

The case study in Senegal focused on practical experiences and lessons learned when expanding financial protection to socially excluded and vulnerable groups.

The case study shows the literature and previous work on health equity to identify promising approaches and strategies from Senegal’s experience to ensure more equitable financial protection, particularly for underserved and socially excluded populations.

Through an LHSS-Joint Learning Network learning exchange, health practitioners from seven countries are sharing successful experiences and promising practices to institutionalize explicit national priority-setting processes for health. The goal? To help countries set equitable national health priorities and ensure that these priorities are reflected in national health plans and budgets.

This report provides results and lessons learned from the LHSS Project’s review of existing literature on expanding financial protection to underserved and socially excluded populations in LMICs.

By now, much has been written about the egregious global inequities in COVID-19 vaccine distribution. But less has been said about another inequity that holds serious implications for global health: the disparities in genomic sequencing capacities and capabilities worldwide.

This strategy document lays out how the LHSS Project will support country partners in moving towards greater gender sensitivity, responsiveness, and ultimately transformation in their health systems.

It is easy to fall back on the habit of using catchall terms like “vulnerable groups” to refer to many different people, but relying on these terms can have a harmful unintended consequence.  

Guided by USAID’s Gender Equality and Female Empowerment Policy (2012), GESI guidance developed by USAID Missions, and the LHSS GESI Strategy, LHSS is committed to implementing five GESI standards to ensure that local health systems meet everyone’s needs for access to quality essential health services.