EA Forum Podcast (All audio) “The best Health Systems Strengthening Interventions... aren’t really that - My take on RP’s report” by NickLaing
TLDR: RP's best interventions barely qualify as Health Systems Strengthening - they focus directly on the Health worker and their implementation. Not only these, but almost all HSS interventions are also measureable and should be measured! Plus some light disagreements with RP.
First a huge thanks to @Open Philanthropy and @Rethink Priorities for this report - I’m not sure any serious attempt at a cost-effectiveness analysis of Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) interventions has been done before - and they’ve done a great job. I won’t spend much time affirming all the good stuff in the report (please read at least the summary before reading this) rather I’ll double down on things I think are important or that I disagree with.
HSS is not neglected
“Health Systems Strengthening” has been a loud clarion call in the public health world for over 30 years now. There can [...]
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Outline:
(00:56) HSS is not neglected
(01:48) RP's best Interventions are barely HSS and focus on Health Workers
(03:50) Cost-Effectiveness of HSS interventions can and should be measured
(06:00) Context matters - Country Intervention
(07:46) IMCI and other guidelines have enormous potential
(08:50) Light Disagreements
(08:53) Community Health workers are often not cost-effective
(11:05) LMH is far more well known and better funded than Living Goods
(11:43) Transitioning to government ownership is a risky bet - that might sometimes be worth it
(12:56) Supply Chains interventions have largely failed.
The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.
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First published:
April 28th, 2025
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.
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