Injuries are one of the leading causes of death and disability in low- and middle-income countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. High quality and accessible healthcare systems are needed to reduce the burden of death and disability after injury. But, where to invest the scarce resources available in these countries to improve health systems and ensure that quality care is delivered efficiently and effectively is not well understood. This understanding is a pre-requisite to improving healthcare and reducing death and disability for injured people. The ways of using data to provide solutions for optimal resource allocation in complex systems (like health systems) under conditions of scarcity is also poorly understood.
For the first time, we will apply state of the art approaches to our unique data set – collected from thousands of injured people across several sub-Saharan African countries – to understand where to invest scarce resources to improve health systems’ provision of injury care. We will do this by producing a conceptual model of the whole health system, which shows the patient journey through the system from being injured to full rehabilitation, where they experience barriers in moving through the system which limit optimal outcomes, and the costs associated with barrier mitigation. In doing so, by using injury care as an exemplar, we will also develop a firm understanding of how to evolve current methodologies to use data to provide improvements in health care systems’ ability to care for multiple other conditions.
In our Team Fellowship, we bring together experts with skills in multiple areas of health economics, health system modelling, social science, and provision of trauma care in low resourced settings. Given the burden of death and disability from injuries in low- or middle-income countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, our Team Fellowship will provide novel and essential knowledge to address both a complex health system and an important global health issue.
