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UCT RESEARCH REPORT 2012
T
ackling the complex challenges of health-system development demands an
inter-disciplinary knowledge base, and research that is applied (addressing real-
world policy and practice issues) and disseminated in ways that inform and support
decision-making. Research focuses on supporting current efforts to transform the
health system, both at the national policy level (particularly in terms of healthcare
financing reform), and through a focus on policy implementation at the district and
service delivery level.
There is a strong emphasis on equity in the research being undertaken, particularly on
identifying ways of promoting health-system equity. Another area that is contributed to
on an ongoing basis is the evaluation of cost-effectiveness of alternative diagnostic and
treatment interventions for diseases of major public health concern, including TB, HIV,
malaria and cervical cancer. A more recent area of work, which falls directly under the
DST/NRF Chair in Health and Wealth, is exploring the social determinants of health within
the South African context.
Finally, the Heath Policy and Systems Division houses the International Religious
Health Assets Programme, which seeks to develop systematic evidence about religious
health assets and their role within health systems
,
as well as being actively engaged
in deliberately learning through doing, in several projects, about the challenges and
opportunities of field-building for this area of research
.
A more recent area of work, which falls directly under the
DST/NRF Chair in Health and Wealth, is exploring the social
determinants of health within the South African context.
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Health Economics
Policy And Systems
Research
A wide range of socially relevant research is undertaken
by two divisions in the School of Public Health and Family
Medicine, both of which have a particular focus on health-
system work: the Health Economics Unit (a university-
accredited research unit), which is home to the DST/NRF
South African Research Chair in Health and Wealth, and the
recently established Health Policy and Systems Division.