Diagnostics Equity Consortium
About
Despite the critical role that diagnostics play in effective disease prevention, treatment, and health system resilience, civil society and communities remain largely absent from the development of national diagnostic policies, enabling environments, and the design and delivery of diagnostic solutions. This disconnect weakens the ‘end-to-end’ diagnostic pathway—from research and development and product introduction to demand generation, uptake, scale-up, and sustainable integration into national health systems. As a result, diagnostic innovations fail to reach the people and communities who need them most.
Civil society and communities are uniquely positioned to identify barriers to access, articulate unmet needs, generate demand, and hold decision-makers accountable for equitable diagnostic services. Yet they often lack the information, technical knowledge, platforms, and collective power needed to meaningfully influence diagnostic policy and investment decisions.
The Diagnostic Equity Consortium (DEC) addresses this critical gap by putting civil society and communities at the center of efforts to transform the diagnostics ecosystem. Through civil society-led advocacy, coalition-building, and peer-led diagnostics literacy, DEC builds the knowledge, networks, and collective voice needed to drive greater demand for equitable access to essential diagnostics and strengthen accountability among national, regional, and global decision-makers and other duty bearers.
This project brings together diverse civil society and community voices to accelerate the delivery, scale-up, and sustainable integration of essential diagnostics into national diagnostic networks, policies, and health systems. By connecting community priorities and lived experience with policy advocacy and decision-making, DEC helps ensure that diagnostic innovation translates into real-world access—so that high-quality, affordable, and appropriate diagnostics are available to everyone who needs them.
Ultimately, DEC seeks to shift diagnostics from being primarily a technical and health-system issue to a community-driven equity and accountability agenda, ensuring that the people most affected by diagnostic gaps have the knowledge, voice, and influence to shape the systems designed to serve them.
Our Work
The Diagnostics Equity Consortium — a partnership between the Center for Global Health Policy & Politics and the Pan-African Treatment Access Movement (PATAM) — generates analyses and engages government, civil society, global health actors, and industry in support of holistic diagnostics advocacy agenda. The consortium provides support for vigorous advocacy at the national level, while also facilitating and elevating the voice of affected communities and civil society on the global level with health actors, industry, and donors.
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Featured Work
Publications
Factsheet
New Near Point of Care TB Tests
English version: French version: Portuguese…
March 23, 2026
Event
Webinar: Scaling Up New Near Point-of-Care TB Tests
The Diagnostics Equity Consortium (DEC) and Stop TB Partnership are pleased to invite you to a live webinar: Scaling Up New Near Point-of-Care TB Tests. 📅 25 February 2026⏰ 8am ET | 2pm…
February 19, 2026
Call to Action
DEC Call to Action: Bring WRD Closer to Where People Live
23 October 2025 Delivered by Ida Savadogo, RAMEWritten by Sharonann Lynch, representatives from the Diagnostics Equity Consortium (DEC), and other civil society…
October 30, 2025
Past Events
Webinar: Scaling Up New Near Point-of-Care TB Tests
February 19th, 2026
Speed-Up, Scale-Up TB Testing! A Focus on the Asia-Pacific Region: Which Tests and Where?
March 19th, 2025
March 5th, 2025