Action research

Health systems can be considered as the products of human relationships: between patients and health workers, managers and policy makers, communities and governments.

As a whole, these relationships establish norms of who is eligible for care and what can be expected from the health system.

In poor countries where health services are weak and under-funded, care that is unaffordable and unavailable can become socially normal. Communities and health workers have substantial knowledge of these norms and interactions and how health policy is 'brought alive' through them. Their voices are often overlooked in the routine design and delivery of services however.

The project will address this situation by institutionalising processes to:

1. strengthen systems to record and report on deaths, their causes and circumstances;
2. enable the voices of people excluded from access to health systems on their needs and priorities for action, and;
3. act on this information with health workers, managers, planners and policy makers.

Media Coverage

• Collaborative health research to tackle 'invisible deaths'