Using System Dynamics to Improve the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Community Health Promoters in Kenya’s Health System (USD-CHP-KHS)

About this project

Using system dynamics modelling to understand how investments in the newly launched Community Health Promoter programme translate into improved service delivery outcomes. The government has, for the first time, committed to providing monthly remuneration to 100,000 community health workers. The team is working with Kenya’s Ministry of Health to examine how alternative policy options—addressing challenges like workload, incentives, supplies, and geographic disparities—could improve effectiveness across maternal health, child health, and chronic disease management.

The Health Systems Impact Modelling project

This online community of practice emerges from a larger programme of work supported by the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research at WHO, with funding from the Gates Foundation and support from Health Systems Global.

The programme began with a scoping review examining existing approaches and past experiences related to health systems modelling. This review revealed a critical gap: while disease-specific modelling has advanced considerably, few studies have estimated the impact of health systems interventions across multiple disease programs, and even fewer have integrated modelling into actual policy processes in a way that demonstrably influenced decision-making.

Following the scoping review, the Alliance convened a series of consultations with policymakers and health systems modellers across low- and middle-income countries. These consultations explored both the appetite for using modelling to inform health systems decisions and the practical barriers to doing so. The insights from these discussions informed the design of a competitive call for proposals issued in 2024.

The call sought research teams who could co-create and apply health systems modelling approaches to address policymaker questions in their countries. Following external peer review, three research teams were selected in late 2024, each receiving support for a two-year project (October 2024 – October 2026).

Health Systems Global (HSG) and The Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research are partnering on this project until December 2026.

The Alliance has formed a Health System Impact Modelling Consortium of HPSR researchers to develop modelling approaches to measure the impact of health systems strengthening (HSS) interventions on essential health services in three countries: Indonesia, Kenya and Ethiopia.

The Alliance aims to facilitate the use of these modelling approaches in informing health systems resource allocation decisions in selected low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), so The Alliance is collaborating with HSG to promote engagement with wider stakeholders to exchange hands-on experiences and foster dissemination of best practices.