Health systems in a global context introduces you to the fundamental elements of health systems from around the world. Covering the financing and organisation of health systems, and key issues related to the demand for and supply of health care, you will be asked to critically engage with policy responses to important health system problems, as well as the overall performance of health systems. Policy problems addressed will include: equity in the financing and provision of health care; universal health coverage; as well as issues related to the use of human resources and pharmaceuticals in health systems.

After taking this module you should be able to:

Describe the building blocks of a health system and illustrate how they interact with each other in complex ways.
 Give examples of the diversity of health systems from different parts of the world in analysing policy problems.
 Describe the main methods of financing health systems, and the impacts of those different methods, for example on equity and resource generation.
 Evaluate the relative contributions of the public and private sector in health care.
 Evaluate policy problems in health system areas that may include: human resources, medicines, health system performance, the role of markets in health care, and the role of communities in health care, and/or others decided on an annual basis.
The module is compulsory for students on the MSc/PG Dip Global Health and Development, MSc Population Health, and MSc Health Economics and Decision Science. The module is also open to any UCL MSc/PG Dip students, Taster course students and Short course students subject to availability.

Each week is organised thematically, supported by several learning objectives:

Health systems: unravelling complexity, striving for universal coverage
 Health Financing and Setting Priorities in Global Health
 Community Perspectives and Health System Demands
 Health Systems Building Blocks
 Contemporary Challenges to Health Systems
Selected reading list: 

Balabanova D, McKee M, Mills A (2011). ‘Good Health at Low Cost’ 25 years On: What Makes a Successful Health System? London, LSHTM.
 Basilico M, Weigel J, Motgi A, Bor J, Keshavjee S (2013). Health for All? Competing theories and geopolitics. In Farmer P, Kim JY, Kleinman A and Basilico M (eds). Reimagining Global Health: An Introduction. Berkeley, University of California Press.
 Black N, Gruen R (2017). Understanding Health Services. Maidenhead, McGraw Hill and Open University Press. Second Edition.
 World Health Organization (2017). Tracking universal health coverage: 2017 Global Monitoring Report. Geneva, WHO.
 WHO (2008). World Health Report 2008: Primary Health Care – Now More Than Ever. Geneva, WHO (read chapter three).