Health system and policy researchers and practitioners, civil society, academia and policy makers from around the world will gather in Vancouver, Canada for the Fourth Global Symposium on Health Systems Research (#HSR2016). The build-up to this biennial conference shows that there is considerable excitement and debate on this year’s symposium theme – Resilient and Responsive Health Systems for a changing world. Can we think of a resilient health system without it being people-centred? The answer is most certainly no.
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In April 2016, FHS IIHMR presented their research on ‘Climate, Society and Health - Research to policy’ at a workshop in Bangalore, India examining complexities, at both the macro and micro level, of ensuring that climate health research informs polity. The workshop - which was attended by academics, post graduate students and civil society members with thematic expertise in agriculture, climate, food security and child rights - was being conducted to mark the silver jubilee celebrations of SOCHARA - an NGO committed to a community health approach to addressing public health problems.
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We set out to leave for Ghoramara - one of the islands of the Sagar block of the Indian Sundarbans in the southern part of West Bengal - as a part of the IIHMR University – FHS study on climatic uncertainties and child health. As I sat in the bottom deck of the ferry travelling the hour long journey from Kakdwip to Ghoramara, I began to read the documents shared by the Panchayat on the island. The island, home to a population of 5000 people, is surrounded by rivers from all corners. It has no primary health facility but a sub-centre and ten anganwadi centres. It is popularly called the sinking island because the rising sea levels due to global warming and climatic events had leached a major portion of the island in the last few decades. A report by Centre for Science and Environment stated that over 25 years, Ghoramara’s land mass has been eaten away by the advancing sea – from 9 sq km to just about 4.7 sq km. I wondered what it meant for people living all their lives in a village and watching it gradually leach out.
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How can the use of photos help to influence decision-makers? Shibaji Bose, FHS PIRU Officer at IIHMR blogs about how women in the Indian Sundarbans used Photovoice - a visual action research technique - to demonstrate to decision makers the challenges that they face in gaining access to health services.
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FHS Researcher Upasona Ghosh writes an article for The International Health Policies (IHP) network on how climate negotiations happen on a global scale, but also in local settings around the world, including in the 'beautiful forest' - the Sundarbans.
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This post was written by Upasona Ghosh, Senior Research Officer at the Indian Institute of Health Management Research and originally appeared on Eldis. It is one of two case studies published on Eldis to mark the World Health Organization conference on health and climate, which tookplace in Geneva from 27-29 August.
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