ASSET

Universal Health Coverage, a key Sustainable Development Goal and a core WHO priority, requires investment in stronger and more resilient health systems, better prepared to deliver quality care at scale, leaving no one behind.

ASSET is a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Global Health Research Unit on Health System Strengthening in Sub-Saharan Africa. We are working in four countries; Ethiopia, South Africa, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe; and across three healthcare platforms; integrated primary health care; maternal care and surgical care. It is funded by the National Institute for Health Research.

The University of Cape Town, a research-intensive university with over 29.000 students was established in 1918, and is hence one of Africa’s oldest universities. ASSET’s work will be drawing on academic strengths from the Alan J Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health (CPMH), and the School of Public Health and Family Medicine (Palliative Care). The CPMH is multi-disciplinary centre that conducts high-quality research on public mental health and uses evidence for teaching, consultancy and advocacy to promote mental health in Africa.

Both research groups have worked extensively on implementation research through primary care in disadvantaged communities in the Western Cape. This includes a history of successful partnerships between UCT and KCL in the area of mental health; including the DFID funded PRogramme for Improving Mental health carE (PRIME, 2011-2019), and the NIMH funded Africa Focus on Intervention Research for Mental health research hub (AFFIRM, 2011-2016).