Health Systems Strengthening
Why strong health systems matter more than any single disease program, and what the building blocks of a functional health system are.
Why Systems Matter
Global health has historically been organized around diseases: there are global programs for HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, polio, and others. But the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that the underlying health system matters more than any single disease program. Countries with strong health systems, adequate health workers, surveillance capacity, supply chains, and governance, responded more effectively regardless of their wealth. Countries with weak systems collapsed under the pressure.
The WHO identifies six building blocks of a health system: service delivery, health workforce, health information systems, access to essential medicines, financing, and leadership/governance. Weakness in any building block compromises the whole system. A country may have medicines but no supply chain to deliver them. It may have hospitals but no trained staff to operate them. Health systems strengthening addresses these interconnected weaknesses.
