Subnational benchmarking of health systems performance in Africa using health outcome and coverage indicators.

National health systems performance (HSP) assessments and benchmarking are critical to understanding how well the delivery of healthcare meets the needs of citizens. Benchmarking HSP has often been done between countries to inform the global public health space. However, its impact is likely to be far greater when implemented sub-nationally to inform actual decisions on resource allocations and performance improvements, especially in high disease burden, low-income countries, where the resource envelope available for health is inadequate. In their study, Roberts and colleagues assemble, analyse and map a minimum set of health intervention and outcome indicators from 1990-2011 to assess and benchmark HSP across the 11 regions of Uganda. This is the first empirical sub-national HSP benchmarking study in the country and the results have potentially important health system policy implications. Please see related research: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/13/285.