Health Promotion and
System Strengthening (HPSS) Project

A strong focus is laid on operational and implementation research, where Swiss TPH as a renowned research institution in public health and health systems development taps into its experience of setting up collaborative mechanisms to develop joint research agendas aligned to national needs and priorities.

 

A Tanzania based “Research Advisory Committee” (RAC) with members representing major stakeholders (e.g. MoHCDGEC, PORALG, NHIF) and academia in the outlined activity areas of the project reviews research proposals. A research agenda for addressing policy relevant knowledge gaps related mainly to the nationwide implementation of iCHF or Jazia PVS, and to some extent of HTM and Health Promotion has been developed. This includes but is not restricted to process analysis of bottlenecks as well key research questions that improve the sustainable national uptake of HPSS interventions.

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It further develops a standardized approach, including a Data Privacy Policy, that guides access to and sharing of IMIS data, with the aim of making them publicly available in an appropriate form respecting privacy concerns. The RAC further guides and provides guidance on how synergies can be utilized with planned or ongoing research activities of academic institutions or implementing partners. Drawing on research resources from Swiss TPH, the project also endeavours to integrate its research with other Swiss TPH based research activities.

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Evidence produced through operational research will be made available internationally and nationally through publications, conferences, fact sheets, webpage publications, workshops, policy briefs and the like. Feedback loops will be created to bring the evidence into the ongoing activities. Evidence generated will also be used in the training courses / university courses supported by the project. Focus is placed on evidence generation for filling identified gaps in the capitalization of all HPSS products and for analyzing the cost-benefit relations of solutions developed in the four thematic components. Using existing data sources is a priority including sources like IMIS.

An important aspect of the work on evidence generation will be the further mining of the data of the IMIS database. The IMIS database contains valuable data on topics such as the medical history of CHF Iliyoboreshwa members, with laboratory use, diagnoses and medication, plus socio-economic data of about one million mainly rural and poor Tanzanians.

 

Expected outputs:

1. Evidence base is created through research and analysis of best practices and knowledge gaps to inform policy and future adaptations in the fields of iCHF development, Jazia PVS, health technology management and health promotion

2. Capitalization products are generated from existing data sources and research results

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