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Globally, traditional medicine has long been used to address relatively common illness, mental ill health and during childbirth and post-natal care. However, traditional medicine is primarily provided by the private sector and it is unclear how far expenditures on traditional medicine contribute to household impoverishment. A life history method was used to understand the health seeking experience of 24 households over the last 60 years in Cambodia, a country with high out-of-pocket expenditures for health. The life histories suggest that traditional medicine in Cambodia has been undergoing a process of commercialization, with significant impacts on poor households. In the earlier lives of respondents, payments for traditional medicine were reported to have been flexible, voluntary or appropriate to patients’ financial means. In contrast, contemporary practitioners appear to seek immediate cash payments that have frequently led to considerable debt and asset sales by traditional medicine users. Given traditional medicine‘s popularity as a source of treatment in Cambodia and its potential to contribute to household impoverishment, we suggest that it needs to be included in a national conversation about achieving Universal Health Coverage in the country.

Gender equity is imperative to the attainment of healthy lives and wellbeing of all, and promoting gender equity in leadership in the health sector is an important part of this endeavour. This empirical research examines gender and leadership in the health sector, pooling learning from three complementary data sources: literature review, quantitative analysis of gender and leadership positions in global health organisations and qualitative life histories with health workers in Cambodia, Kenya and Zimbabwe. The findings highlight gender biases in leadership in global health, with women underrepresented. Gender roles, relations, norms and expectations shape progression and leadership at multiple levels. Increasing women's leadership within global health is an opportunity to further health system resilience and system responsiveness. We conclude with an agenda and tangible next steps of action for promoting women's leadership in health as a means to promote the global goals of achieving gender equity.

Introduction: Life history is a research tool which has been used primarily in sociology and anthropology to document experiences of marginalized individuals and communities. It has been less explored in relation to health system research. In this paper, we examine our experience of using life histories to explore health system trajectories coming out of conflict through the eyes of health workers. Methods: Life histories were used in four inter-related projects looking at health worker incentives, the impact of Ebola on health workers, deployment policies, and gender and leadership in the health sector. In total 244 health workers of various cadres were interviewed in Uganda, Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe and Cambodia. The life histories were one element within mixed methods research. Results: We examine the challenges faced and how these were managed. They arose in relation to gaining access, data gathering, and analysing and presenting findings from life histories. Access challenges included lack of familiarity with the method, reluctance to expose very personal information and sentiments, lack of trust in confidentiality, particularly given the traumatized contexts, and, in some cases, cynicism about research and its potential to improve working lives. In relation to data gathering, there was variable willingness to draw lifelines, and some reluctance to broach sensitive topics, particularly in contexts where policy-related issues and legitimacy are commonly still contested. Presentation of lifeline data without compromising confidentiality is also an ethical challenge. Conclusion: We discuss how these challenges were (to a large extent) surmounted and conclude that life histories with health staff can be a very powerful tool, particularly in contexts where routine data sources are absent or weak, and where health workers constitute a marginalized community (as is often the case for mid-level cadres, those serving in remote areas, and staff who have lived through conflict and crisis).