APO Health systems reviews template for authors

The Asia Pacific Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (APO) has released an updated template for Health Systems Reviews (HiTs), its flagship publication series supporting evidence-based health policymaking across countries.
The newly updated 2025 template builds upon the previous 2016 version, which was refined through extensive consultations with authors, editors, and health systems experts. The latest revision was led by the APO Secretariat, with contributions from a new team of experts, and was field-tested by current HiT authors to ensure practicality and relevance.

The updated template features more specific questions, definitions, examples and an updated list of data sources for developing the country profile. To ensure cross-country comparison as possible, the 2025 template resembles the same structure as previous one while accommodating emerging health issues such as climate change and gender while specific sections are consolidated to improve clarity for the readers. The template is also designed to be user-friendly for authors, enabling easy navigation of the writing process.
HiTs seek to provide relevant information to support policy-makers and analysts in the development of health systems. This can be used:

• to learn in detail about different approaches to the organization, financing and delivery of health services, and the role of the main actors in health systems;
• to describe the institutional framework, the process, content and implementation of health-care reform programmes;
• to highlight challenges and areas that require more in-depth investigation and/or policy attention;
• to provide a tool for the dissemination of information on health systems and the exchange of experiences between policy-makers and analysts in different countries implementing reform strategies; and
• to assist other researchers in more in-depth comparative analysis of health policies.

To ensure cross-country comparison as possible, the 2025 template resembles the same structure as previous one while accommodating emerging health issues such as climate change and gender while specific sections are consolidated to improve clarity for the readers. The template is also designed to be user-friendly for authors, enabling easy navigation of the writing process.