Despite the growing recognition of the importance of strengthening health systems around the world, there is a considerable lack of shared definitions and guiding principles that are threatening the ability to form strategic policy, practice and evaluations. In this week's PLoS Medicine , Robert Chad Swanson from Brigham Young University, USA and colleagues present a set of 10 guiding principles for health systems strengthening to address this problem, developed from a comprehensive review of the literature and consultation with experts.
"We invite global health leaders and planners to scrutinize and counter these principles," say the authors, "and we hope that such a discussion will establish a common set of principles that will serve as the foundation for future health systems strengthening discussions and strategies.
Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this article. RL is supported through the Government of Canada "Canada Research Chair" program.
Competing Interests: RCS received US$1000 from the Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health for partially funding one of the attended conferences. He also shared a room for one night while attending a different conference with a colleague that was paid for by the NGO Food for the Hungry.
Citation: Swanson RC, Bongiovanni A, Bradley E, Murugan V, Sundewall J, et al. (2010) Toward a Consensus on Guiding Principles for Health Systems Strengthening. PLoS Med 7(12): e1000385. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000385
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