Leverage Social Development Agenda to Promote Health System Improvement: The Design of the BMGF–China Primary Healthcare/Poverty Alleviation Project

Ill health is one of the most important causes of poverty. Leveraging a social development agenda, such as poverty reduction/elimination, can be an effective strategy to mobilize high-level political will and resources to support the improvement of healthcare system, especially for PHC system development and improvement.People-centered integrated PHC service improvement strategies/approaches have been developed and implemented to prevent targeted high-risk populations from minor diseases to catastrophic illnesses to reduce the risk of poverty due to illness.Although the interventions made some meaningful progress, the challenges are still significant, such as financing for people-centered integrated PHC, system quality measurement and improvement, and effective performance management for improvement.