“Health innovation is often developed in response to local challenges, fueled from frontline health workers by unique needs and opportunities. Yet the power to scale up innovation is often vested in high-level authorities that have limited understanding of local contexts.
How can innovation in global health be sparked? A growing social innovation in health movement shows that innovation is more effective when it emerges bottom-up from low-income and middle-income countries.
Social innovation in health is a community engaged process that links social change and health improvement, drawing on the diverse strengths of local individuals and institutions. Social innovation argues that having local beneficiaries drive the development of a health programme results in more sustainable and accountable services. This commentary considers social innovation in health, including its history, tools for identifying social innovation, examples of social innovation, unanswered questions, and the next steps.”
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