Systemic path to global health 2050.

Abstract

In 2024, the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health proposed targeting investment in 15 priority conditions through 19 modular interventions to improve global health by 2050. While pragmatic, this approach may not fully capture the complex-adaptive nature of health and health systems, nor their social, economic and political determinants. In an iterative, interpretive analysis, proposed global health investment frameworks were mapped against complexity, systems thinking and health epistemology frameworks; five thematic areas were identified for further development: (i) health as emergent from interdependent, social-biological systems; (ii) the non-biomedical determinants driving inequities; (iii) health systems' adaptive requirements; (iv) epistemic injustices that marginalize non-Western perspectives; and (v) the need for context-sensitive, community-led implementation of health measures. Recent major disruptions to international aid financing, while challenging, present a unique opportunity to redesign health investment on more sustainable and locally grounded foundations, where national governments deliberately invest in the social determinants of health as direct health improvement strategies rather than merely as adjacent social policy. To seize this opportunity, we propose five guiding principles for policy-makers: (i) community co-production of interventions; (ii) adaptive governance structures; (iii) complex systems literacy in workforce training to navigate interdependencies and uncertainty; (iv) cross-sectoral partnerships to address determinants of health; and (v) context-sensitive metrics that incorporate community engagement to support learning within health systems. These are not optional enhancements to existing approaches; they are the foundations without which any health investment strategy will continue to treat the symptoms of inequity rather than its causes.