Health Policy Research Unit

Research focus

The Unit/Centre for Health Policy's (CHP) broad field of work is that of health policy and systems research, a multi-disciplinary and applied field of research that focuses on understanding and strengthening health systems. A health system includes ‘all actors, organisations, institutions and resources whose primary purpose is to improve health’. A health system encompasses the public and private health facilities through which preventive and curative care is delivered, as well as health promotion programmes, inter-sectoral initiatives to address the underlying causes of ill-health, epidemiological surveillance systems, the various organisations and mechanisms producing financial, human and technological resources, and the organisations responsible for policy, planning, management and regulation of the entire system.

Specific areas of work

Since 2003, CHP has pursued research work under four inter-locking research themes:

• Drawing household experiences of health and health care into policy development, including:
  • analysis of the extent, patterns and underlying causes of health inequalities between population groups;
  • analysis of household ability to pay for health care and of the social resources on which households draw in coping with ill-health and health care expenditures.
• Investigating the practices of health care providers, including:
  • assessment of the factors influencing provider practice and the factors leading to better policy implementation at this level;
  • development and dissemination of strategies to support health workers to integrate new challenges and policies into their practice (HIV/AIDS care and support, mental health care, private provision of STI care).
• Strengthening the software of health systems development, including:
  • assessment of how relationships between tiers of governance and administration drive the performance of the public health system;
  • assessment of the nature of the public/private interfaces within the South African health system and the forces driving their development, as well as detailed investigation of specific public-private interfaces;
  • assessment of the existing health sector regulatory frameworks and how to strengthen them.
• Evaluating the performance of the health system and health care programmes, including:
  • analysing overall health system equity and efficiency, and changes over time;
  • assessment of how decentralisation impacts on service delivery e.g. HIV/AIDS and maternal services’ provision.