Dissemination - SUPPORT-SYSTEMS
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Presence at major global health research conferences.
SUPPORT-SYSTEMS has so far presented its research at three major global health conferences. Several team members participated in November 2023 at the Conference on Public Health in Africa, the annual conference of the African Union and Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. The 3rd edition of the conference took place in Lusaka, Zambia. PhD candidates Daniel Nana Yaw Abankwah (University of Ghana) and Dennis Waithaka (KEMRI Wellcome Trust), along with post-doctoral fellow Doris Ottie-Boakye, all presented posters in Lusaka.
In Prague in September 2024 at the Global Evidence Summit, all three delivered oral presentations on civil society’s role in local health decision-making in Ghana and Kenya, including evidence use in primary care and vaccine policy.
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| Dennis Waithaka, Daniel Nana Yaw Abankwah and Doris Ottie-Boakye, respectively, presenting at the Global Evidence Summit in Prague. | ||
The project also had major presence at the largest health systems research conference globally—the Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, which is a biannual event. In 2024 the conference took place in Nagasaki, Japan, with major presence from health policy and systems researchers worldwide as well as major global organizations like the World Health Organization and the World Bank. This year’s conference placed strong emphasis on the importance of community participation and the co-production of just knowledge as a foundation for achieving equitable health outcomes. Accordingly, the SUPPORT-SYSTEMS focus on civil society’s use of evidence was particularly timely and relevant, and Doris and Daniel again gave oral presentations of their research, focusing on contextual influences on how civil society uses evidence in sub-national primary health care decision-making in Ghana, and the types of evidence civil society actors contribute to such decisions, illustrated through a case study on vaccine-related policymaking.
In addition, in a highly competitive field, the project also secured acceptance for a proposal for an organized session, featuring presentations by project members alongside invited contributors offering diverse perspectives on the project’s core questions. You can read a summary of this session here.