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Literature Review: Civil Society Engagement to Strengthen National Health Systems to End Preventable Child and Maternal Death

This document summarizes a literature review on civil society engagement to strengthen national health systems to end preventable child and maternal death. The role of civil society in national health system strengthening remains ill-defined as disagreements continue to exist concerning the roles and responsibilities of donors, governments and civil society itself. The authors aim to […]

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Measurement of Health Program Equity Made Easier: Validation of a Simplified Asset Index Using Program Data From Honduras and Senegal

Piggy-backing on an existing representative household survey that includes an asset index, it is possible to assess the socioeconomic distribution of program beneficiaries at low cost. The typically large number of questions used to construct the asset index, however, deters many implementers from adopting this approach. This Global Health: Science and Practice article highlights a […]

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Case Study: Improving Quality of Care and Outcomes for Child Health Using the Standards-Based Management and Recognition Approach in Zimbabwe

This case study aims to document the application of Standards-Based Management and Recognition (SBM-R) as a quality improvement approach to the case management of childhood illness in Zimbabwe through USAID’s predecessor flagship Maternal and Child Health Program. The lessons learned about the implementation process, success factors, and challenges will illumine the adoption of SBM-R to […]

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Community Health Systems as Complex Adaptive Systems: Ontology and Praxis Lessons from an Urban Health Experience with Demonstrated Sustainability

The global health and development field, which has been reasonably dominated by linear models of planning, is witnessing increased interest in complexity, non-linear processes, and systems thinking. This welcome interest is challenged by both language and ability to discern whether complex development phenomena are discussed from the perspective of the nature of particular health systems […]

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Advancing the application of systems thinking in health: sustainability evaluation as learning and sense-making in a complex urban health system in Northern Bangladesh

Starting in 1999, Concern Worldwide Inc. (Concern) worked with two Bangladeshi municipal health departments to support delivery of maternal and child health preventive services. A mid-term evaluation identified sustainability challenges. Concern relied on systems thinking implicitly to re-prioritize sustainability, but stakeholders also required a method, an explicit set of processes, to guide their decisions and […]

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Maternal and Child Survival Program