Civil society actors have become more visible, active and influential within health and health systems. Understanding their role, the factors influencing them and the health outcomes they produce is important to anyone wishing to improve public health.

This website presents an annotated bibliography of research on civil society and health prepared as a collaboration between the World Health Organization's Civil Society Initiative and Training and Research Support Centre. The research focused on three theme areas:

• Civil society - state interactions in national health systems
• Civil society contributions to pro-poor, health equity policies
• Civil society influence on global health policy

At this website you can:

• View and download a general overview paper on the major findings and research issues from the three theme areas.
• View and download highlights of research findings and issues arising from the literature within each of the three theme areas.
• View and search a database of the annotated bibliography of research covering all three theme areas.

The overview and theme papers on this site are written by Dr Rene Loewenson, Training and Research Support Centre. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the World Health Organization.

The site includes in the bibliography papers received by WHO and TARSC by 1 July 2002 and papers received after this date will be included in a later update.