What do people want from the Resilient Health Systems evidence collection? Insights and reflections
Evidence plays a critical role in preparedness, response, recovery, and resilience of health systems during all stages of the emergency management continuum. There is an increasing need for reliable and readily available evidence to support researchers and policymakers in making decisions related to health systems’ resilience. The Resilient Health Systems (RHS) evidence collection, a partnership between Evidence Aid and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), was created to address this need. It is an open-access evidence collection of summaries of systematic reviews relevant to the resilience and continuity of health systems and services in the context of health emergencies and disasters. With over 270 summaries published on the website (as of 15 December 2023), the RHS evidence collection continues to increase in the number of summaries made available. Furthermore, the collection is a work-in-progress and is updated and enhanced regularly. The summaries are available in English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish, with many also translated into Arabic, Chinese, German, Italian, and Japanese.
One of the ways we aim to improve the RHS evidence collection is to hear directly from users and potential users to gain a deeper understanding of how they might benefit from the collection. To do this, our team sent out a survey in November 2023 to collect feedback about the RHS evidence collection. This provided us with valuable insights into what people might like about the collection and what should be priorities for future developments.
The survey responses highlighted that the collection could be a useful tool to inform policy and decision-making, particularly because it makes complex research topics more accessible. Responders found the collection “extremely useful” and “essential [for] decision-making bodies in public health”. Furthermore, when asked what future topics they would like to see covered in the RHS collection, responders highlighted the need for summaries related to neonatology and paediatric emergencies, preparedness for and response to migration, and financing mechanisms, among others. These recommendations will be taken into consideration during future phases of the RHS project.
The feedback received from this survey demonstrates the value of the Resilient Health Systems evidence collection for researchers, policymakers, and healthcare professionals. As we continue to advance and update the collection, feedback from users is essential for making enhancements that suit their needs. In doing so, this collection will become more useful in providing decision-makers with high-quality evidence on topics related to health systems resilience.
Authors: Sumra Ali, Claire Allen, Epa La Bella, and Mike Clarke – Evidence Aid Resilient Health Systems Project Team.