Health plays a key role in ensuring global sustainable development and poverty reduction. This is recognised by its central position in three of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): the global priorities for development.

ODI investigates the role of health systems in helping vulnerable people – including migrants, refugees, children, urban dwellers and sex workers – to deal with the shocks and stresses of poverty. Our research looks at why individuals, households or communities experience different levels of access to health or support services, and how discrimination or exclusion contribute to inequity in health service provision. The aim is to increase understanding of ways to achieve equitable access to health services. It is this that will, ultimately, enable people to engage in markets, accumulate productive assets, and take part in economic growth. 

Much of our work on public health focuses on those living with, or affected by, HIV and AIDS. But our work on such areas as livelihoods, humanitarian response, gender, childhood and youth, food, water and sanitation and the role of the private sector in development are also relevant.