Rainer Martens

Datos Biográficos

ID1212288
NOMBRERainer Martens
NOMBRESRainer
APELLIDOMartens
FIRMAMARTENS R
AFILIACIONESAlliance for Health Policy and Systems Research
ORCID0000-0002-2416-2309
VERIFICADOSí
TOTAL DE OBRAS50
TOTAL DE CITAS29
TOTAL COMO AUTOR50
TOTAL COMO EDITOR0
PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN1969
AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN2026
ÍNDICE H3

  • From knowledge accumulation to transformative action

    Open AccessJulia Berenson, Rainer Martens et al.ARTICLEInternational Journal for Equity…2026

    Despite three decades of expanding scholarship on social determinants of health (SDH), progress in reducing health inequities has remained limited. While the SDH framework has reshaped global health discourse and informed policy rhetoric, the translation of knowledge into transformative action has been insufficient. The gap between evidence and impact is not explained by political constraints alone but is also contributed to by the orientation, m…

  • Community experiences of the impacts of climate-induced extreme weather events in Uganda

    Open AccessRawlance Ndejjo, Susan Karuhanga et al.ARTICLEPLOS Global Public Health2026

    Climate change is impacting health, social systems and livelihoods of populations across the world with sub-Saharan Africa being particularly hard-hit. Lived experiences of the impacts of climate change are paramount to understanding how at-risk communities are uniquely impacted and collectively devise response mechanisms. However, there is limited evidence of the community’s lived experiences of these impacts. This study explored the community e…

  • Role of a primary healthcare approach in Covid-19 pandemic response in the eastern Mediterranean region

    Open AccessFadi El-Jardali, Nour Ataya et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2025

    INTRODUCTION: Primary healthcare (PHC) can play a critical role in disease preparedness and response. The PHC approach was not always considered in the COVID-19 response in the eastern Mediterranean region (EMR). This article assesses the extent to which a PHC approach was deployed in the pandemic response and identifies barriers, enablers and lessons learnt for strengthening PHC for disease preparedness and response in EMR. METHODS: A multicount…

  • Primary health care in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic in 10 South-East Asian countries

    Open AccessAlexandra Edelman, Rainer Martens et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2025

    Introduction Strengthening primary health care (PHC) in the WHO South-East Asia Region is key to addressing evolving health needs, including the high burden of non-communicable diseases and emerging public health threats within rapidly changing demographic, climatic and geopolitical contexts. Between 2021 and 2023, 10 case studies were conducted to examine PHC in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. A cross-case regional synthesis aimed to ident…

  • An unfinished agenda

    Open AccessAlexandra Edelman, Lluis Vinyals Torres et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2025

    In the WHO Western Pacific Region, primary health care (PHC) is considered ‘the future of health’ and the key to achieving universal health coverage. However, political, economic and social forces underlying curative, hospital-centric models have eroded public, local-level health service capacity—contributing to fragmented systems and persisting health inequities. Drawing insights from seven published country case studies from East Asia examining…

  • New health taxes in Ghana

    Open AccessKatherine E Smith, Mark Hellowell et al.ARTICLEHealth Policy and Planning2025Referencias: 24

    In the context of a fiscal crisis and health pressures, Ghana’s government has been exploring additional pro-health taxes. The World Health Organization and World Bank support health taxes as ‘win-win’ policies that can, if designed effectively, simultaneously improve health and raise revenue for health spending. However, international evidence shows that health taxes can meet political and public opposition. Yet, there is little research that em…

  • Confronting corporate power

    Open AccessShalini Bassi, Saurabh Kumar Gupta et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2024

    The South-East Asia Region (SEAR) faces a growing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), shaped in part by complex commercial determinants of health (CDoH). This analysis considers how aggressive marketing, policy interference and addictive product design by the tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed food (UPF) industries contribute to this burden. SEAR’s distinctive demographic, cultural and economic conditions create both vulnerabilities and…

  • Enabling cross-country learning and exchange to support universal health coverage implementation

    Open AccessLauren Oliveira Hashiguchi, Maeve Conlin et al.ARTICLEHealth Policy and Planning2024

    As countries transition from external assistance while pursuing ambitious plans to achieve universal health coverage (UHC), there is increasing need to facilitate knowledge sharing and learning among them. Country-led and country-owned knowledge management is foundational to sustainable, more equitable external assistance for health and is a useful complement to more conventional capacity-building modalities provided under external assistance. In…

  • Commercial determinants of health

    Open AccessSharon Friel, Jeff Collins et al.ARTICLEThe Lancet2023

  • Defining and conceptualising the commercial determinants of health

    Open AccessAnne Gilmore, Alice Fabbri et al.ARTICLEThe Lancet2023

  • Characteristics of successful government-led interventions to support healthier populations

    Open AccessP Bragge, Alex Waddell et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2023

    Despite progress on the Millennium and Sustainable Development Goals, significant public health challenges remain to address communicable and non-communicable diseases and health inequities. The Healthier Societies for Healthy Populations initiative convened by WHO’s Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research; the Government of Sweden; and the Wellcome Trust aims to address these complex challenges. One starting point is to build understandi…

  • Using systems thinking to generate novel research questions for the evaluation of sugar-sweetened beverage taxation policies

    Open AccessM Alvarado, Rainer Martens et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2023

    Sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes have been recommended by the WHO, introduced in over 85 countries, and assessed through an increasing number of evaluations. However, few studies have applied systems thinking to generate questions exploring the range of ways in which an SSB tax, and the system within which it is embedded, have adapted to one another over time. We demonstrate how adopting this perspective could advance the field. A systems thi…

  • An exploration of stakeholder views and perceptions on taxing tobacco, alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages in Ghana

    Open AccessArti Singh, Katherine E Smith et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2023

    BACKGROUND: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) account for nearly 43% of Ghana's all-cause mortality. Unhealthy commodities (such as alcohol, sugar and tobacco) are an important factor in the growing NCD burden in the region of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Despite health taxes on tobacco, alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) gaining renewed attention, adoption and implementation in SSA remain limited. This study aims to unpack the contextual p…

  • Strengthening evidence to inform health systems

    Open AccessAdnan A Hyder, Sarah Rylance et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2023

  • Framing health taxes

    Open AccessKaung Suu Lwin, Adam D Koon et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2023

    Health taxes are effective policy instruments to save lives, raise government revenues and improve equity. Health taxes, however, directly conflict with commercial actors’ interests. Both pro-tax health advocates and anti-tax industry representatives seek to frame health tax policy. Yet, little is known about which frames resonate in which settings and how framing can most effectively advance or limit policies. To fill this gap, we conducted qual…

  • Framing health taxes

    Open AccessAdam D Koon, Rainer MartensARTICLEBMJ Global Health2023

    Health taxes are increasingly positioned as effective policy instruments for curbing non-communicable disease, improving health and raising government revenues. Their allure has caused many health advocates to look beyond tobacco and alcohol to other harmful products such as sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), salty foods, fatty foods and fossil fuels. These efforts, however, directly conflict with commercial actors’ interests. Both pro-tax health …

  • The health sector and fiscal policies of fossil fuels

    Open AccessDouglas Webb, Odd N Hanssen et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2023

  • How states engage in and exercise power in global health

    Open AccessRainer Martens, Johanna Hanefeld et al.ARTICLESocial Science & Medicine2023Referencias: 19

    While long overlooked, power is central to understand how actors engage in global health policymaking. We reviewed how the Japanese and Indonesian governments exerted power and engaged in global health diplomacy during negotiations to conceptualize the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goal for health (SDG3). We conducted deliberative policy analysis including semi-structured, in-depth, interviews with more than 71 policymakers, which we analyzed…

  • Whole of government and whole of society approaches

    Open AccessFlaminia Ortenzi, Rainer Martens et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2022

  • ‘Implementability’ matters

    Open AccessAngela Jackson‐Morris, Angela Mary Jackson-Morris et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2022

    The ‘implementation gap’ between national plans and successful implementation is a central theme in addressing non-communicable diseases (NCDs). It is a factor that has undermined Sustainable Development Goal 3.4, which aims to achieve a one-third reduction in premature mortality from four major NCDs by 2030. Responding to the potential of implementation research to support low-income and middle-income countries to effectively advance their strat…

  • Health for peace

    Open AccessWasiq Khan, Seye Abimbola et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2022

  • Health taxes

    Open AccessRainer Martens, Jeremias Paul et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2022

  • Engaging globally with how to achieve healthy societies

    Open AccessRene Loewenson, Eugenio Villar et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2021

    The way healthy societies are conceptualised shapes efforts to achieve them. This paper explores the features and drivers of frameworks for healthy societies that had wide or sustained policy influence post-1978 at global level and as purposively selected southern regions, in India, Latin America and East and Southern Africa. A thematic analysis of 150 online documents identified paradigms and themes. The findings were discussed with expertise fr…

  • A health systems resilience research agenda

    Open AccessDell D Saulnier, Karl Blanchet et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2021

    Health system resilience, known as the ability for health systems to absorb, adapt or transform to maintain essential functions when stressed or shocked, has quickly gained popularity following shocks like COVID-19. The concept is relatively new in health policy and systems research and the existing research remains mostly theoretical. Research to date has viewed resilience as an outcome that can be measured through performance outcomes, as an ab…

  • Power analysis in health policy and systems research

    Open AccessStephanie M Topp, Marta Schaaf et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2021

    Power is a growing area of study for researchers and practitioners working in the field of health policy and systems research (HPSR). Theoretical development and empirical research on power are crucial for providing deeper, more nuanced understandings of the mechanisms and structures leading to social inequities and health disparities; placing contemporary policy concerns in a wider historical, political and social context; and for contributing t…