Leading health systems change through research from within West and Central African experiences

Abstract

Health problems are often driven by complex embedded intertwined social determinants of health. Individual interventions, isolated from system considerations, rarely result in sustainable solutions. As noted by Rutter et al., “Instead of asking whether an intervention works to fix a problem, researchers should aim to identify if and how it contributes to reshaping a system in favourable ways” Research and capacity strengthening to generate and implement solutions need to be appropriate to the context and focus on policies and systems as well as specific interventions. There is a need to strengthen national and sub-national capacities and systems for contextually relevant evidence generation rather than just focusing on identifying “proven effective interventions” for transfer to varying contexts in a travelling models approach. This supplement presents experiences and research findings from efforts by West and Central African researchers to address pressing health problems collaboratively and to strengthen health policies and systems from within.