Program overview: While health workers drive population health outcomes, investments into their training, recruitment and retention often do not align with system goals resulting in wasted resources and worse health. This program investigates sustainable ways to build the workforce needed for universal health coverage. Using methods like discrete choice experiments, economic evaluations and analyses of survey and administrative datasets, we investigate health system incentives, policy interventions and financing models to improve the motivation, retention and training of health workers, reduce corruption and investigate the economic impacts and investment case for greater use of non-physician health workers. Program objectives: The program aims to contribute to the development and scale-up of sustainable interventions to tackle global workforce challenges and improve population health. View projects Program lead

Program overview: The number of older people globally is growing rapidly, yet many national health systems remain unprepared to meet their needs. A driving factor is that governments do not have adequate evidence to guide the design and delivery of appropriate health and social care services for older adults. The Ageing and Health Systems Program aims to produce new evidence to inform effective national and local health system responses to population ageing. The program includes applied policy studies and implementation research, embedding participatory co-design and priority setting methodologies to maximize translational impact. Program objectives: The overarching objectives of this program are to: Conduct participatory assessments of healthy ageing policy, program and service priorities to inform an effective health system response to population ageing. Harness the capacity of population health data to identify priority populations and opportunities to deliver e

Program overview: The health policy analysis group of the Health Systems Science Program seeks to understand and improve how agendas are set, policies are developed, and how these policies can shape - and be shaped by- health systems, societal understanding of health, and its determinants. The group is transdisciplinary in nature, and integrates expertise across health economics, sociology, political science, public health, international relations, modelling and qualitative research to conduct health policy analysis across the spectrum to conduct policy analysis across a range of approaches such as: Outcome oriented approaches: with the intent to identify the 'best' policy solution, through undertaking objective analyses of possible solutions by mapping or quantitatively assessing effectiveness, equity, or feasibility of implementing policies Mainstream approaches: to identify and analyse actors, interactions between them policy process and or to analyse how power and re

SMARThealth offers a new approach to disease detection, management and treatment – strengthening primary care systems, building the capacity of health workers, and improving health outcomes for patients. SMARThealth (Systematic Medical Appraisal, Referral and Treatment for common health conditions) was developed by The George Institute for the management of chronic diseases. It leverages a low-cost, digital platform which can be used by health workers to significantly improve patient care, especially in contexts where health services are limited. Deployed on hand-held digital devices, SMARThealth uses evidence-based algorithms and guidelines to help community health workers assess chronic disease risks for people in their communities. People identified to be needing further care are then referred via the platform for clinician follow up. Extending SMARThealth The first iteration of SMARThealth was ‘HealthTracker’ used in Australia in 2009 to analyse the electronic health records o

Program overview: Health and well-being are intrinsically impacted by socio-determinants related to carers, family, community, and service delivery across health and other sectors, within local country context. Socio-determinants are complex and can include dispossession, institutional racism, drug and alcohol, and debt, resulting in a lack of access to culturally safe services and intergenerational mistrust of services. However, sustainably integrating services within health and other sectors is challenging due to patient, organisational and policy and historical barriers.Our program aims to strengthen health systems resilience using interdisciplinary implementation research across different contexts, cultures and sectors, to holistically address socio-determinants of health so as to improve health equity. Program Objectives:  Examine and implement best practices in community engagement, partnerships and capacity-strengthening.  Embed WHO integrated people-centred

The George Institute for Global Health is a global medical research institute that focuses on non-communicable diseases and injury.  With centres in four countries (Australia, China, India and the UK) and offices and staff in many others, we are monitoring the evolving COVID-19 situation.  As a global organisation experienced in operating across time zones with flexible working hours, we are well suited to working remotely and continuing to deliver on our mission to improve the health of millions of people worldwide.  A major focus for us is the safety and well-being of our staff across the globe and we are putting in place plans to ensure they are supported in their work and life, tailored for each setting we are in.    The George Institute will be monitoring external events and adjusting accordingly, with our staff, partners and research programs, front of mind. The importance of chronic disease co-morbidity in terms of the impact of COVID-19 infe

We conduct large scale work to influence global health policies and practice. For example, a large scale cohort study recruiting 40,000 people in 21 low and middle-income countries is informing development of better fracture care in resource-poor settings. In India, we have reviewed national injury surveillance systems and made recommendations to Government regarding their strengthening and expansion. We evaluated the pilot cashless scheme of health insurance for road crashes victims and made recommendations for effective coverage and performance benchmarking. The findings have contributed to expansion of the scheme across all National Highway’s in India , under the Motor Vehicle (Amendment) bill 2016.

The 15th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion (Safety 2024) co-sponsored by the World Health Organization will be held between 2nd-4th September 2024 at Taj Palace, New Delhi (India). This event will focus worldwide attention on safety and injury prevention. The event is hosted by The George Institute for Global Health in collaboration with three other WHO Collaborating Centres in the region:  Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Center (TRIP) at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi Department of Emergency Medicine, All India Institute for Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Department of Epidemiology, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) All the international experts in the field will gather at this event with a united goal of “Building a safer future for all: Equitable and sustainable strategies for injury and violence prevention”. Why is the George Ins