People-centred health systems: building more resilient health systems in the wake of the Ebola crisis.

Abstract

The 2014-2016 West African Ebola outbreak demonstrated the extent to which local social and political dynamics shape health system responses to crises such as epidemics. Many post-Ebola health system strengthening programmes are framed around a notion of health system 'resilience' that focuses on global rather than local priorities and fails to account for key local social dynamics that shape crisis responses. Post-crisis health system strengthening efforts require a shift towards a more 'people-centred' understanding of resilience that attends to the people, relationships and local contexts that constitute health systems and the practices that produce crisis responses