Policy brief from India
This brief from our partners at the Institute of Health Management Research looks at the role of informal health providers in West Bengal (pdf).

Call for abstracts
Conference on Scaling Up of Health Programs in Low-Income Countries, December 3-6, 2008, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

New Paper from FHS
Poverty and access to healthcare in developing countries is the subject of our paper in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.

Bangladesh Health Watch report looks at the health workforce crisis.

Capacity Building Workshops on conducting household surveys held in Beijing and multi level modelling held in Uganda.

Melissa Leach and James Fairhead, from Future Health System's partner the STEPS Centre, have been featured in the WHO Bulletin: 'Understandings of immunization: some west African perspectives.' (pdf)

Our colleagues from IDS discuss the future of primary health care on the STEPS Centre blog.

Find out how our colleagues from the Institute of Public Health, Makerere University were involved in the National Meeting on Knowledge for Action on Equity in Health which was held in Kampala.

Our colleague Kakaire A. Kirunda in the news in Uganda
Ever wondered what quality means in terms of health facilities in Uganda? Read our article in the Daily Monitor.

Future Health Systems were represented at the Geneva Health Forum.

Special Issue of Social Science and Medicine (pdf)
With contributions from Future Health Systems' partners this special issue offers suggestions on how to build future oriented health systems that meet the needs of the poor.

Reflections from Afghanistan on maternal health
May 5 marks International Day of the Midwife. Sandhya Sundaram doctoral candidate at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health offers a snapshot of progress on Millennium Development Goal 5.

Working Paper on health, equity and poverty in West Bengal (pdf)
This document from our colleagues at Institute of Health Management Research (IIHMR) aims to initiate dialogue between key stakeholders on how to make the health care delivery system work more for the poor and vulnerable and to protect them from the impoverishing effects of poor health and consequent health care.

New policy briefs from China
FHS experts were involved in a major project for rural health system reform and development funded by the Chinese government, World Bank credit and a grant from DFID. This project provided important insights into China’s management of health system change. These lessons have been summarised in two recently published DFID policy briefs.
Improving maternal health (pdf)
Partnerships for development (pdf)

FHS Communications capacity building workshop, Sussex 08
Effective communication is crucial to maximising the impact of development research. Yet spaces are rarely created for research institutions to share their experiences and plan how to improve their communication work’s effectiveness.

Working Paper on health in China (pdf)
China’s health care system is currently at a critical point, encountering unprecedented opportunities as well as challenges as a result of
recent rapid economic development. This paper gives recommendations on future policy for financial protection in health.