Asia
The following are some of our research projects and outputs in Asia:
Institute for Global Health and Development
ReBUILD
Cambodia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone
2020-2026
Founder: Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) (DFID)
Partners: Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (UK), Queen Margaret University (UK), American University of Beirut (AUB), Burnet Institute (Myanmar), Herd International (Nepal), College of Medicine and Allied Health Sciences (COMAHS)
Research Associate: International Rescue Committee, Oxford Policy Management
ReBUILD for Resilience examines health systems in fragile settings experiencing violence, conflict, pandemics and other shocks. Our aim is to produce high-quality, practical, multidisciplinary and scalable health systems research which can be used to build health systems resilience and improve the health and lives of many millions of people. For more information, please visit the project website. ReBUILD for Resilience is an international consortium of organisations from Lebanon, Myanmar, Nepal, Sierra Leone and the UK. Between us we have expertise across all health systems pillars and in a wide range of disciplines including public health, epidemiology, social sciences, health economics, political science, research methodologies and gender. The consortium is building on the work started during the highly successful ReBUILD programme but is focusing on a wider range of stressors in a wider range of contexts – fragile and shock-prone (FASP) settings. The consortium has been active since 2020 and is funded by a £7.68 million grant from the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.
Find out more about the ReBUILD project
Whole Systems of Care for Stroke Patients in China
Sun Yat-Sen University, China
2016-2018
This initiative is funded by the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the Economic and Social Research Council and the Department for International Development. The 16-month project has been developed in collaboration with medical anthropology, nursing and public health researchers at Sun Yat-Sen University to build evidence towards the development of a stroke care system for older adults in Guangdong Province.
Systems Resilience in UNRWA Health Provision to Palestine Refugees Displaced by the Syria Crisis.
Jordan, Lebanon, Syria
2016 - Present
With the American University Beirut and UNRWA. This project explores key vulnerabilities of UNRWA health systems in the face of disruptions associated with the displacement of Palestine refugees registered in Syria. The research aims to identify strategies to strengthen health system resilience in contexts of protracted displacement. This research project is funded by Elrha's Research for Health in Humanitarian Crises R2HC Programme. The R2HC Programme is funded equally by the Wellcome Trust and Department for International Development with Elrha overseeing the programmes execution and management.
NIHR Research Unit on Health in Situations of Fragility (RUHF)
Lebanon, Sierra Leone, El Salvador
2017- Present
The NIHR Research Unit on Health in Situations of Fragility (RUHF) at QMU focuses on contexts where displacement, conflict, pandemic disease or weak capacity makes the delivery of health services especially challenging. Although its work seeks to be of wide relevance to the delivery of healthcare in situations of fragility, RUHF especially focuses on two vital but commonly neglected areas of health provision in these contexts: mental health and psychosocial support, and the treatment and prevention of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. RUHF researchers at QMU's Institute of Global Health and Development (IGHD) work closely with its collaborative partners - the Global Health Institute, American University of Beirut (AUB), Lebanon, and the College of Medicine & Allied Health Science (COMAHS), Freetown Sierra Leone.
Local Community Experiences of and Responses to Conflict-Induced Displacement from Syria: Views from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey
Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey
2016 - Present
This project, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and Economic and Social Research Council, aims to critically examine how, why and with what effect local communities in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey are responding to mass displacement from Syria and want to develop a greater understanding of the roles that religious values, beliefs and practices play both implicitly and explicitly in these responses. (COMAHS), Freetown Sierra Leone.
Results4TB: Designing and evaluating provider results-based financing for tuberculosis care in Georgia: understanding costs, mechanisms of effect and impact.
Georgia
2017 - 2022
Founder: The project is funded through the Joint Health Systems Research Initiative which is jointly funded by the Department of International Development (DFID), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the Wellcome Trust (WT).
Partners: The Results4TB research project is a partnership between Curatio International Foundation, Queen Margaret University, the Institute of Tropical Medicine (Antwerp) and The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. For more information, please refer to the "Partners" page at Results4TB.
Georgia has a high burden of tuberculosis, with almost 1 in a thousand people becoming infected in 2015. Despite improvements in TB detection and treatment, the Georgian treatment success rates remain low which shows that many people may not be completing treatment, posing a threat to their own health as well as that of their families and communities. Although the Georgian government has introduced incentives for patients to encourage continuous treatment, adherence remains low. Therefore, new results-based financing incentive scheme has been introduced with an aim to motivate health service providers, thus improving patient adherence and treatment outcomes. Results4TB is helping to develop the pilot intervention with policy makers and programme managers and provide evidence of its impact and cost-effectiveness. The project will make suggestions for fine-tuning and modification if the RBF scheme is to be rolled out nationally in Georgia. Results4TB will provide valuable evidence on a health systems intervention for TB, and will contribute to a better understanding of RBF for practitioners, donors and researchers. For more information about this project, please visit the project webpage.
Exploring approaches for complementary private sector engagement in the health sector in Northern Syria
Syria
2021 - 2022
Founder: UOSSM France
Partners: UOSSM France
In collaboration with UOSSM France, this project aimed to explore sustainable and long-term approaches to health service provision by investigating the role of the private sector in the provision of health services in Northern Syria. After a successful first phase, the project is now extended until August 2022 to assess service utilization among community members in Northern Syria across different health providers. This second phase would generate evidence on the main sources of healthcare in the region and the interaction of communities with different sectors to address their health needs. More details about this project are available here.
