Since the launch of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000 ( United Nations 2000), health systems have become a priority focus for researchers, managers and decision makers, and efforts have been increasingly invested to improve the capacity of local health systems with the aim of achieving the MDGs by 2015 ( Murray and Frenk 2000 Sachs et al. Social network analysis can serve the interests of health systems researchers by providing concrete measures and tools to define health systems.Įvidence generated through social network analysis could help policy makers understand how health systems react over time and how ties between actors can influence the diffusion of innovations. The complexity and embeddedness of health systems create very similar challenges for analysis to the ones generated by social networks. Evidence generated through social network analysis could help policy makers to understand how health systems react over time and to better adjust health programmes and innovations to the capacities of health systems in low- and middle-income countries to achieve universal coverage. The social network analysis methodology adapted to health systems research and described in detail by the authors comprises three main stages: (i) describing the set of actors and members of the network (ii) characterizing the relationships between actors and (iii) analysing the structure of the systems. Social network analysis can provide an appropriate and innovative paradigm for the health systems researcher, allow new analyses of the structure of health systems, and facilitate understanding of the role of stakeholders within a health system. This can be achieved through better insight into how health systems are structured.
The main challenges in international health are to scale up effective health interventions in low- and middle-income countries in order to reach a higher proportion of the population.