Community Health Systems Group

Community Health Systems Group

The Community Health Systems Group specialises in the scale-up and evaluation of community health interventions. Our research has demonstrated strategies for quality integrated community health programs that are sustainable. The group is lead by Dr Miriam Taegtmeyer and consists of twenty staff and doctoral students with a research portfolio of over £8 million (2018), spanning 15 countries across Africa and Asia.

Our vision is to create a world where your health is not dictated by who you are, where you are born or where you live

Credit - Photo by Daniel Mtombosola

Our mission

We conduct robust and innovative global health implementation research on community health systems. We engage and partner with communities, practitioners and policy makers.  Our research is used to strengthen and sustain high quality community health systems for underserved communities.

 

REACHOUT Consortium Meeting with CHSG members in Nairobi, Kenya, March 2017.

Our Approach

We are our partnerships and it is only through collaborations with other researchers, practitioners, policy makers and communities that change can occur.  Capacity development is core to our way of working and we share learning across our partnerships and research portfolio to strengthen the capacity of our research stakeholders.  We apply systems thinking in our research to ensure that it is focused on strengthening community health systems and integrating community health into the formal health system.  We are rigorous in the use of mixed methods implementation research to better understand how to scale-up high-quality care whilst tackling equity challenges in complex health systems.  We embrace new technologies and innovation where this can lead to cost effective, evidence-based solutions.  We are passionate about real world research that produces useful research that is used to influence local and national policies and bring about change. 

Where we work

The Community Health Systems Group’s operational research is frequently integrated with large scale disease prevention and elimination programs in lower- and middle-income countries. The group provides technical assistance to consortia, international institutes and governments in the design, implementation and evaluation of community-based health interventions. Capacity development is core to our way of working and we share learning across our partnerships and research portfolio to strengthen the capacity of our research stakeholders.  We apply systems thinking in our research to ensure that it is focused on strengthening community health systems and integrating community health into the formal health system.

 Bangladesh • Malawi • Swaziland • Ethiopia • Mozambique • Tanzania • Indonesia • Philippines • Uganda • Kenya • South • Africa • Zimbabwe • Lesotho • Sudan • Zambia

PhD Students

Nicole Yan

Integrated approaches to point of care testing in antenatal care in Kenya

Rosie Steege

Exploring gender dynamics at the interface of community and health systems in Ethiopia and Mozambique. LSTM scholarship awarded Sept 2015.

Lynne Elliot

Functionality and sustainability of quality improvement teams for community health systems in Kenya

Meghan Bruce

Costs, finances and decision-making for community health programmes

Charlotte Hemingway

Digital gaming and HIV knowledge, testing and linkage among adolescent MSM in the Philippines

Stephen Mulupi

Decision-making and priority setting for lung health in a devolved Kenyan community health system