Systems Thinking Analyses for Health Policy and Systems Development

Employing critical-systems thinking, this study analyses the evolution of a health system providing universal coverage.

Using systems-thinking tools for the first time to understand an entire national health system, this book will be of immense value to academics, students and policymakers. The case study of Malaysia shows that a people-centred health system can be constructed successfully within existing and evolving resource constraints and priorities.Health systems are fluid and their components are interdependent in complex ways. Policymakers, academics and students continually endeavour to understand how to manage health systems to improve the health of populations. However, previous scholarship has often failed to engage with the intersections and interactions of health with a multitude of other systems and determinants. This book ambitiously takes on the challenge of presenting health systems as a coherent whole, by applying a systems-thinking lens. It focuses on Malaysia as a case study to demonstrate the evolution of a health system from a low-income developing status to one of the most resilient health systems today. A rich collaboration of multidisciplinary academics working with policymakers who were at the coalface of decision-making and practitioners with decades of experience, provides a candid analysis of what worked and what did not. The result is an engaging, informative and thought-provoking intervention in the debate. This title is Open Access.