Table 1. Categorization of the malERA health systems research goals and approaches.

Categories	Goals/Problems	Means/Approaches	Cross-Cutting	Stage of Elimination/Eradication
Critical/transformational	Reduce unacceptable and avoidably low effective coverage of essential malaria interventions.	Develop/validate toolkit for owning, analyzing, and responding to system-level bottlenecks in intervention delivery and use.	Yes, drugs, vaccines, vector control, diagnostics.	Scaling-up, sustained control, preelimination, and elimination.
	Harness a community of health systems analysts into the malaria elimination community.	Assess other models of global disease elimination enterprises to develop an optimal approach to an appropriately widened community.	Yes.	Scaling-up, sustained control, preelimination and elimination, prevention of reintroduction
	Understand how and facilitate strengthening of health systems by disease-specific global health initiatives in malaria.	Assist global health initiatives to apply systems science to guide health system strengthening investments.	Yes, concerns all agendas.	Scaling-up, sustained control, preelimination, and elimination.
Conditional/situational	Facilitate policy decision uncertainty for when to commit to transitioning from control to elimination phase and understand how disease-specific global health investments in malaria strengthen health systems and facilitate it.	Develop systems dynamic modeling, tools and case studies to understand determinants for elimination go-no/go policy decisions.	Yes, concerns all agendas.	Scaling-up, sustained control and preelimination, elimination.
	Determine whether the kind and mix of integrated interventions are cost-effective in differing epidemiologic and health system contexts.	Develop system dynamic modeling and respective tools as well as case studies to assess synergies.	Yes, drugs, vaccines, vector control.	Control, preelimination, elimination.
Increased emphasis	Communicate determinants of successful regional and intercountry collaboration for disease elimination	Critical review and analysis.	No.	Elimination.
	Major increase in community and district engagement and ownership of the malaria-control and elimination agenda.	Develop means to engage communities more effectively in case management, vector control, and surveillance.	Yes, drugs, vaccines, vector control, surveillance.	Control, preelimination, elimination.