Heath Systems Strengthening Practice Spotlight: Promoting Inclusivity in Health System Decision Making

The large-scale delivery of high-quality, integrated, preventive, promotive, and curative health services presents a formidable challenge to health systems. Equity-enhancing implementation research is essential to improving the ability of health systems to provide this care equitably and achieve goals for universal health coverage (UHC). This brief provides examples of how implementation research can address equity challenges and offers recommendations for practitioner consideration. This brief identifies specific ways implementation research can address health systems equity challenges with emphasis on the following:

• Bridging the often-substantial gap between design and implementation reality of pro-poor policies and strategies

• Increasing accountability for equity-enhancing outcomes as programs scale-up by explicitly measuring and accounting for equity-related variables

• Empowering disadvantaged groups to influence programs and policies intended for their benefit