Below are the citation and opening paragraphs of an editorial in Health Policy and Planning, followed by a comment from me.
Daniel Maceira, Stephanie M Topp
Health Policy and Planning, Volume 39, Issue Supplement_2, November 2024, Pages i1–i3, https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czae075
Published: 18 November 2024
https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/39/Supplement_2/i1/7901677
'Advancing the field of health systems research requires drawing from diverse bodies of knowledge. This involves not only deepening expertise within our own intellectual domains but also engaging with the research interests, experiential knowledge and skills of others. It requires a commitment to understanding different perspectives, and seeking opportunities for cross-fertilization and knowledge expansion.
'This is not a simple task. We have been trained, as social scientists, to go in-depth into our area of specialization, narrow down our research questions, identify and separate effects to better understand how the world works, how policies affect health results and how behaviours change over time when exposed to different stimulus. We are often focused on whether and how institutions become resilient to external change, and how community efforts affect and are affected by the policymaking process. The age-old debates about the merits and limitations of qualitative and quantitative approaches, and how best to combine them, often form a backdrop to this work.
'Nevertheless, there is a common understanding — we believe — that interdisciplinary efforts ‘are’ valuable, with cross-disciplinary spillovers enriching research and strengthening our capacity to understand, engage with and ultimately change reality. Health Systems Global, a society committed to advancing research on health policy and systems was founded on this very principle: bringing together the parts of the whole for learning, exploration and even transformation. Yet the complexity of this endeavour increases when extending beyond the boundaries of the health care system, to include the social, cultural and political determinants of health and consider how coordination across all social sectors can be achieved.'
COMMENT (NPW): The editorial continues by referencing a series of illustrative papers, which appear to focus on intersectoralism within countries. There is another dimension of intersectoralism that requires attention: global multistakeholder collaboration. Arguably this requires a specific goal-driven approach around which professionals from multiple sectors and different countries can exchange knowledge. Conventionally this has been approached through international conferences, although the latter typically define an area of interest rather than a goal. HIFA and other communities of practice have adapted this approach to create online communities that focus intermittently on specific subjects (HIFA Projects). This includes HIFA Projects that support international health research projects ( www.hifa.org/projects ). HIFA is now inviting ideas/proposals for new HIFA Projects in 2025. Email neil@hifa.org
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org
