National Institute of Public Health
Ministry of Health
BRIDGE Network is a collaboration of leading academic and policy institutions across Southeast Asia, working together to generate, share, and use high-quality data and evidence for stronger, more equitable health systems.
Building trusted partnerships across academia, policy, and practice throughout the region.
Producing rigorous, policy-relevant research to address critical health system challenges.
Translating evidence into actionable insights that support better decision-making.
Building institutional capacity and resilience for sustainable health system improvement.
About BRIDGE Network
BRIDGE — Building Regional Insights and Data for Governance and Health Equity — is a regionally led network of universities, research centres, ministries, government agencies, and civil society organisations united by a shared commitment to strengthening health systems across Southeast Asia.
Established in 2026, the network supports countries in the region to build institutional capacity, generate and integrate evidence, and translate data into policy and performance improvement. Our priorities are shaped by regional and national partners, and our work is co-developed with government agencies, academic institutions, and policy actors who drive health system reform.
BRIDGE is distinctive because it combines regional ownership with national leadership, shared learning with country-specific adaptation, and technical analysis with practical policy translation — ensuring that the institutions responsible for health systems own the evidence and the process.
Why This Matters
Health systems across Southeast Asia are undergoing rapid transformation — facing population ageing, a growing burden of noncommunicable diseases, rising healthcare costs, and climate- and migration-related health risks. While governments continue advancing Universal Health Coverage, these complex challenges require stronger evidence to support better policy decisions.
The region is generating more health data than ever before, yet much of this information remains fragmented across programmes, institutions, and sectors. Limited interoperability, weak data governance, and insufficient analytical capacity prevent countries from fully using available data to measure equity, quality, efficiency, and system responsiveness.
BRIDGE was established to address this gap — connecting institutions across borders to strengthen how data is generated, integrated, analysed, and used for health system improvement.
Advance knowledge. Strengthen impact.
BRIDGE provides a platform for multi-country collaborative research, access to shared analytical frameworks and datasets, peer learning opportunities, and joint publication partnerships in leading regional and global journals.
Explore our research agenda →
Use evidence. Improve systems. Save lives.
BRIDGE delivers timely policy briefs, country-specific performance dashboards, and structured policy dialogues designed to translate complex health data into practical, context-sensitive recommendations for national and subnational decision-makers.
Explore policy resources →
Our Work
Our work is organised around three mutually reinforcing pillars that combine rigorous analysis with applied policy engagement, operating across regional, national, and subnational levels.
Developing and institutionalising context-sensitive approaches to health system performance assessment that inform national and subnational decision-making, while enabling cross-country benchmarking and shared learning across the region.
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Strengthening health data systems, digital health architecture, and governance arrangements to enable reliable, interoperable, and actionable data for evidence-based health governance across the region.
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Improving the interpretation and policy translation of burden of disease evidence to support priority setting, subnational planning, and alignment of health system investments with population health needs.
Learn more →Our Approach
BRIDGE operates by linking regional collaboration to national efforts with subnational implementation. At the regional level, we facilitate cross-country learning, benchmarking, and the development of shared analytical approaches. At the national level, designated institutional leads serve as hubs for technical implementation and evidence-to-policy translation. At the subnational level, partners support provinces, districts, and facilities in applying data for planning, priority setting, and performance improvement.
This approach ensures that regional collaboration strengthens national capacity, which in turn enables better subnational implementation of data-driven health system reforms.
BRIDGE is structured so that regional partners are not beneficiaries but drivers: we set priorities together, co-design research, co-produce outputs, and co-present findings to decision-makers. This is what makes our work both more credible and more likely to inform policy.
Member Institutions
BRIDGE Network brings together academic institutions, research centres, ministries of health, policy agencies, and regional partners working collaboratively to strengthen health systems through data, evidence, and shared learning across Southeast Asia.
The institutions below represent the current BRIDGE Network collaboration. The website presents the collective work of existing members and partners; BRIDGE is not currently open for public membership applications.
Ministry of Health
Ministry of Health
Research and policy partner
Ministry of Health
Health Policy Development & Planning Bureau
Policy research institution
Academic partner
Secretariat
Technical partner
Technical partner
Ministry of Public Health
Mahidol University
Knowledge partner
Ministry of Health
Academic partner
China Medical Board (CMB) Foundation
Asian Development Bank
Asia Pacific Observatory on Health Systems & Policies
Precision Public Health Asia Society
Resources & Tools
Collaborative multi-country studies addressing regional health priorities and informing health policy and practice.
Explore our work →
Research briefs, policy notes, data tools, and methodological resources developed by our member institutions.
Browse resources →
Peer-reviewed articles, working papers, and comparative analyses produced through the BRIDGE Network.
View publications →News & Events
NUS Medicine and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) launched the NUS-IHME Global Burden of Disease Research Centre, a new regional hub to serve as a key analytical engine for the Southeast Asia delivering scientific evidence that its leaders can translate into policy.
📅 2 Feb 2026
CMB Foundation, NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, NUS-IHME Global Burden Disease Regional Research Centre convened the first regional consultation with 15 national experts and researchers to explore establishing a regional network focused on strengthening data capacity for health policy and health systems.
📅 3 Feb 2026
The Digital Health Roundtable on Health Data Sharing for Impact convened regional policymakers, health-sector leaders, technical experts and global partners for an invitation-only discussion on advancing responsible health data sharing across Southeast Asia.
📅 3 Jul 2026
BRIDGE Network organized a workshop for its Data Capacity and Systems Pillar at the National University of Singapore, Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health
📅 4 Jul 2026
The Philippine Institute for Development Studies-Health Economics and Finance Program (PIDS-HEFP) successfully convened the second forum in the UHC in Numbers Series, where a number of BRIDGE members contributed to the discussion on data and evidence for accelerating UHC implementation.
📅 16 Sep 2026
BRIDGE Network is convening its second biannual meeting, co-hosted by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health (NUS SSHSPH), and CMB Foundation.
📅 17-18 Sep 2026Get in Touch
BRIDGE Network is coordinated by the NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, which serves as the network's initial secretariat. For enquiries about our work, partnership, or collaboration opportunities, please reach out.
