The African Health Economics and Policy Association (AfHEA) is pleased to invite experts, analysts, practitioners, policy makers and researchers in health economics, health policy and health systems to submit abstracts for the seventh Scientific Conference to be held in Kigali, Rwanda, from 10-14 March 2025 at the Kigali Convention Centre.

Conference theme & sub-themes

The broad theme of the conference is: “Resilient and Strong African Health Systems: Contributions of Health Economics and Health Policy.”

The sub-themes of the conference are:

1. Strengthening Primary Health Care (PHC) for Universal Health Coverage (UHC): PHC as a driver to improving access to services; Evaluating PHC performance; Financing PHC services; and Quality improvement in healthcare delivery.

• Health Financing and Economic Sustainability: Innovative financing models for healthcare in Africa; Public-private partnerships in healthcare funding; and Economic implications of health system resilience.

• Healthcare Access and Equity: Addressing disparities in healthcare access; Strategies for improving healthcare equity; and Tackling social determinants of health, such as poverty, education, gender inequality, and environmental factors, improving education and employment opportunities and ensuring access to clean water and sanitation.

• Community Engagement and Empowerment: Community-based health interventions; Strengthening community health systems; The impact of community engagement on health outcomes; and Building community resilience.

• Health Infrastructure and Workforce: Investing in healthcare infrastructure, including hospitals, clinics, laboratories, and medical supply chains, is crucial for providing quality healthcare services. Additionally, addressing healthcare workforce shortages, improving training and retention, and supporting community health workers can enhance healthcare delivery.

• Health Information Systems and Digital Health Technologies: Strengthening health information systems and data collection mechanisms is necessary for evidence-based decision-making. Relatedly, digital technologies play a role in improving the timely availability of quality data. Of importance is the collection and use of quality data for monitoring progress, decision making and effective targeting of interventions. Assessing Telehealth and its economic implications; Digital health tools for cost-effective healthcare; and Technological advancements for efficient health data management provide valuable lessons for improving service delivery and monitoring.

• Public Health Emergency Preparedness: Pandemic response and preparedness; Economic implications of health emergencies; and Building resilient health systems as a means to ensuring health security.

• Health Outcomes and Performance Measurement: Metrics for assessing health system performance; and Economic evaluation of health interventions.

• Strengthening Health Systems Governance: Policy reforms to enhance health system resilience; Governance and regulatory frameworks in health; Collaborative efforts among African countries for health system improvement; Regional health policies and their impact; and Lessons learned from successful regional health initiatives.

Health Economics, Public Health and Health Policy researchers, in particular, are encouraged to submit abstracts on this broad theme and its sub-themes or, indeed, on any other interesting, innovative, or topical African health sector or systems research which, upon selection by our scientific committee, may be presented orally or in poster format at the conference.

Proposals for organized sessions

Proposals for organized sessions are also invited from interested individuals or institutions.

An organized session must have a session organizer who will describe the overall session in the session abstract; a minimum of three individual abstracts and a maximum of five individual abstracts describing the individual presentations of the session, as per the organized session structure described further below.

Please note, however, that we do not accept proposals for plenary sessions.

Language and structure of abstracts

Abstracts may be submitted in English or French and must be structured as follows:

Structure of individual abstracts

• Title of paper
• Name, institutional affiliation, phone number and email address of the presenting author
• Names of co-authors
• 400-word maximum structured abstract, which indicates the background, aims and objectives of the research, the methods used, the key findings and the main conclusion(s).

Authors should submit individual abstracts online at: https://afhea.confex.com/afhea/2025/cfp.cgi no later than July 31, 2024.

Structure of proposals for organized sessions

• Title of organized session
• Principal organizer (Name, institutional affiliation, phone number and email address)
• Co-organizers (Names, institutional affiliations and email addresses)
• Session abstract: 400-word maximum structured abstract that provides a summary of the session
• Abstract of each paper (max 400 words): should include the aims and objectives of the paper and the key findings (do not include annexes). The maximum number of papers allowed for each session is 5. 

The proposals for organized sessions should be submitted online at: https://afhea.confex.com/afhea/2025/cfp.cgi. The deadline for submission of proposals for organized sessions is July 31, 2024.

Note that there are different online submission forms for individual and organized session abstracts and the correct form must be used.

All abstracts submitted will be reviewed by the Scientific Committee.

Review process

To ensure a high scientific standard of the presentations at the conference, a quality assurance process consistent with the capacity-building goal of AfHEA will be used in the review of abstracts.

Reviewed abstracts will be categorized as follows:

• Accept category (oral or poster): abstracts that meet all the set criteria and for which the reviewers have no doubt about their high standard
• Reject category: abstracts that do not meet the set criteria and which reviewers find are of a low standard

In addition, early-career researchers will have an opportunity to benefit from mentorship and hence get an opportunity to submit and present a quality paper at the conference.

The mentorship process is described below:

• Before submission of individual abstracts: Early-career researchers can opt to use our freely available mentorship program by submitting their draft abstract to the email address: afhea24@gmail.com, with <AfHEA_mentorship> in the subject line by May 31, 2024 to get feedback from established researchers to improve the quality of their submissions and enhance their chances of getting their abstracts accepted. Reviewed abstracts will be returned to authors by June 30, 2024 to enable them to address comments before the submission deadline.
• After acceptance of an abstract for oral presentation, interested early-career researchers can submit their draft PPT presentations to afhea24@gmail.com by November 15, 2024 for review and feedback from established researchers. Reviewed PPT presentations will be returned to presenters by January 15, 2025.
• Early-career authors who participated in the mentorship above may be allowed to make mock presentations on the first day of the conference (before the conference sessions begin).

This process is consistent with AfHEA’s goal of capacity building for early-career researchers.

Participation in the mentorship process is voluntary, but AfHEA encourages early-career researchers to take advantage of this opportunity to improve their skills and increase their representation at the AfHEA conference.

The abstract submissions received for the conference (individual and organized sessions) will inform the organization of parallel sessions, with AfHEA’s conference Scientific Committee determining the technical composition of conference sessions. Applicants for both individual abstract sessions and proposals for organized sessions will be notified of the decision on their abstracts/proposals by October 15, 2024.

Satellite or pre-conference sessions and side events

We are also calling upon organizations/institutions interested in organizing their own satellite sessions or side events during the conference, including pre and/or post-conference workshops, to submit their proposals to Ms. Grace Njeri Muriithi at: conference@afhea.org and cc: afhea24@gmail.com by September 30, 2024 to facilitate conference programming.

Summary of key dates

Activity	Deadline
Opening of abstracts submission	May 1, 2024
Submission of individual abstracts	July 31, 2024
Submission of proposals for organised sessions	July 31, 2024
Feedback to authors of individual abstracts and organised sessions	October 15, 2024
Submission of satellite sessions/side events	September 30, 2024
Opening of registrations	November 1, 2024
Feedback to organisations about satellite/side sessions	December 31, 2024
Collection of slides and posters	February 10, 2025

Contact us

In case of any questions or need for clarification, kindly contact:

Ms. Grace Njeri Muriithi,

AfHEA Secretary

Email:conference@afhea.org and cc: afhea24@gmail.com

Web page: https://afhea.org/en/conferences/