Table. Lenses on the Community Health System: Purposes, Positionalities and Implications .

Lens	Purpose of CHS	Positionality	Policy	Practice	Research
Programmatic	Instrumental – delivery of services, health outcomes	Ministries of health	Fixed elements: financing, supply chains, information systems, cadres, structures	Programme and budget cycles, Indicators and reporting, Donor coordination mechanisms, Structures of decision-making	Costing and investment cases, effectiveness, M&E
Relational	Instrumental –programmes co-produced	Health system implementers	Core rules and with flexible, context specific components, feedback mechanisms with course correction	Negotiating, navigating, learning by doing	Community capability and assets, complex adaptive systems, power analyses, realist evaluations, action-research
Collective action	Justice and rights – responding to the needs and priorities as defined by communities	Actors within the CHS	Values of inclusivity, equity and participation Mechanisms of dialogue	Collaborative action, social mobilisation, activism	Social movements, emergence and self-organisation, social-psychology, collective action
Critical	Social justice – CHS as a site of social and political struggle	Actors within and beyond the CHS	The nature of the state and its key orientations (social-democratic, neo-liberal etc)	Analyses which support collective action, political struggle and policy reforms	Discourses, political economy decoloniality

Abbreviation: CHS, community health system.