Global Health Impact Assessment and Evaluation (IMPACThealth)

Health Impact Assessment and Evaluation (HIAE) is a systematic process that uses several data sources and analytic methods to determine the effects of a policy, program, or project on the health of a population. Despite recent improvements in data availability and in methods for quasi-experimental and mathematical modelling, quantitative HIAE is still underused for evidence-based policy-making.

The overarching aim of the Global Health Impact Assessment and Evaluation (IMPACThealth) group at ISGlobal is to advance the development and application of quantitative HIAE methods across a broad range of research domains and public health challenges.

IMPACThealth is an interdisciplinary research group based at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), the Institute of Collective Health in Brazil (ISC/UFBA), Brazil, and the Manhiça Health Research Centre (CISM), Mozambique.

The group is part of the ISGlobal Severo Ochoa (SO) programme which supports interdisciplinary science to improve the understanding of complex health problems. The group is set to work in an integrated way with other programmes to evaluate and model more effective interventions for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda. It also aims to maximize its research impact through advocacy activities and dynamic dialogue with policy makers and programme managers.

The IMPACThealth group currently leads research on the effectiveness of social protection programmes, conditional cash transfers, healthcare systems, primary healthcare, and humanitarian and development assistance in addressing a wide range of poverty-related diseases, health conditions, and mortality outcomes. Key areas of focus include maternal and child health, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS, among others. The group is also at the forefront of methodological innovation in Health Impact Assessment and Evaluation, developing cutting-edge analytical approaches and integrating retrospective impact evaluations based on large longitudinal datasets with advanced microsimulation models to generate robust forecasts of health outcomes.

The group coordinates several multicountry projects that provide comprehensive and comparative impact evaluations at both global and regional scales.  These studies span all low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) worldwide, as well as key countries across Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa, including Brazil, Mexico, Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Gabon, and Uganda. Through these initiatives, the group generates robust evidence on the health impacts of public policies and development interventions across diverse socioeconomic and epidemiological settings

Highlighted Projects

• IMPACTaid: Evaluating the Past, Present, and Future of the Humanitarian and Development Assistance: Understanding Health Impacts for Research and Action.
• PILLAR: Two decades of primary health care expansion in Latin America: a multi-country evaluation and forecasting study for health-related SDGs.
• DSAIDS: The Impact of social determinants, conditional cash transfers and primary health care on HIV/AIDS: an integrated retrospective and forecasting approach based on a cohort of 100 million Brazilians.
• TB Brazil: The Impact of primary health care on Tuberculosis incidence, cure rate and mortality: an integrated retrospective and forecasting study.
• HealthProtect: Implementing interventions to reduce health inequalities and mitigate the impact of economic crises in Latin America.
• InequalRed: Implementing a platform for fiscal interventions to reduce health inequalities and mitigate the impact of economic downturns in Spain.
• The impact of social drivers, conditional cash transfers and their mechanisms on the mental health of the young; an integrated retrospective and forecasting approach using the 100 million Brazilian Cohort.
• CADSISVAN: Evaluation and projections of the impact of monitoring health conditionalities on the nutritional status of children in the Brazilian Conditional Cash Transfer Program.
• ECHILIBRIST: Development and validation of a quantitative point-of-care test for the measurement of severity biomarkers to improve risk stratification of fever syndromes and enhance child survival.