In lower-income settings in sub-Saharan Africa there are fundamental questions which have potentially enormous consequences for the health and wellbeing of populations: How should a country decide which effective interventions to offer as part of its healthcare service provision and which must it forgo if it is to maximise health and reduce health inequalities? What health benefit would accrue if more funding were to be made available? What future changes in the need for healthcare must be planned for, and what are the consequences of failing to do so? What would be the value of strengthening delivery systems in the light of forecasts for climate change, and how could this be achieved?

Addressing these questions is hard because it requires a detailed understanding of the many and varied health challenges and healthcare options that exist. At the same time, a very high value is placed by decision-makers on approaches that can help inform such crucial decisions.

As part of the Thanzi La Onse (“Health for All”) programme, we are embarking on a new project – Thanzi La Mawa – which is funded by The Wellcome Trust and will directly address these questions. The Research Fellow would join a strong, multidisciplinary term of epidemiologists, economists, healthcare system specialists and research software engineers over a three year project. The overall approach is the development of a uniquely detailed individual-based simulation model in tandem with analyses of epidemiological, healthcare system and financial data.

This is an opportunity to break new ground in healthcare system modelling and health-economics, working across many diseases and geographies to produce innovative new analyses, and to contribute to the sustainable use of such approaches in the following years.