Health Policy and Systems Research: Where Are We and What Does the Future Hold?

Abstract

Health policy and systems research (HPSR) is a relatively young and multidisciplinary field of applied and policy-relevant science. It bridges the worlds of research, practice, and advocacy, and is dedicated to producing evidence to improve health policies and systems, while maintaining a focus on equity and social justice. The evidence around HPSR has grown significantly, but there is a paucity of reflections on HPSR as a field in a context of multiple inter-linked crises. This commentary reflects on key thematic, methodological, and value-driven trends in HPSR to underline its utility within the global health discourse and inform its prioritization. Key HPSR trends include increasingly multidisciplinary, participatory, and inclusive approaches and efforts toward decolonization. These reflect national and global societal priorities and respond to shifting burdens of communicable and non-communicable diseases, aging populations, rapid and uncontrolled urbanization, epidemics of infectious diseases, and climate emergency. Improved prioritization of HPSR nationally and globally, including dedicated and diversified funding for research and strengthening of local research and implementation capacities for HPSR, are particularly important in the current context of geopolitical and fiscal changes. Sustaining and growing HPSR can inform strong health systems and, ultimately, contribute to improved health and wellbeing.