Public Health Systems - Challenges and Opportunities: The Case of Nepal

This course has been accredited by tropEd Network for Higher Education Institutions in International Health.

The course provides an in-depth introduction to the public health system in Nepal, examining its structure, challenges, and innovations within a resource-constrained setting. Participants will explore key health issues from both the supply and demand sides, and analyze public health interventions aimed at addressing these problems. Special attention is given to the socio-cultural factors influencing health behaviors and care-seeking in Nepal. Through comparative analysis with other health systems globally, the course equips learners to assess challenges, identify information sources, and propose context-appropriate solutions for improving health outcomes in low-resource environments.

• An overview of the Public Health delivery system in Nepal
• Comparison of health care systems in different resource settings
• Health related challenges from supply side and demand side
• Public health interventions to address health problems
• Socio-cultural determinants of health care seeking behaviour in Nepal

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• describe the health care delivery system in Nepal,

• identify major sources of health-related information,
• explain major health problems including challenges and opportunities to address these problems,
• identify socio-cultural aspects of care seeking, service delivery and health behaviors,
• identify innovations and initiatives to address health problems both from supply side and demand side,
• compare problems and challenges of health care systems in developed and developing countries, and
• assess and discuss possible health system solutions in a resource-constrained system.

Public health professionals, epidemiologists, researchers, health policy planners, and health allied professionals interested in health system research and public health interventions.

Registration is TBA

From May 5th to 9th, we had the pleasure of running our Advanced Module in Public Health Systems in Nepal, in collaboration with Patan Academy of Health Sciences. This one-week intense course is designed to provide participants with an overview of the health system in Nepal, challenges that arise, as well as come up with interventions to address these challenges, while comparing them to other countries as well. This year, 14 participants took part in the module, including three students from Ethiopia, one student from India, one student from Italy, and the rest were Nepalese.

The course was coordinated by Sudarshan Paudel and Deepak Paudel, with additional support from Prof. Madhusudan Subedi. The students had the chance to not only listen to many speakers who are experts in the area, but also go on a field trip to a local community health facility, to get some first-hand experience on how health centers are run.

The module was a success, with participants providing positive feedback particularly regarding the field trip, and the chance to conduct group work and learn how to compare their own countries’ health systems. We are always striving to improve and be better, and hope to continue running the course smoothly in the years to come.