Saudi Health System and Health Security Structure: A Scope Review Study Addressing the National Need for Governing the Health Security

Health security has gained significant attention at the national and global levels, “security” is not a simple term; instead, it is “essentially contested” - that is, it induces debates about what it means and how to use it. This study aimed to define three terms frequently used in health security discussions. These terms are national health security, Global Health Security, and public health. The research method was a scoping review performed in three stages. The first stage was electronic searching based on selection criteria among multiple sources at various time points during the year 2023. These sources included online literature searches, websites of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and other governmental health agencies. The second stage involved determining the relevance of the selected papers to the study’s objectives; the selected papers had moderate to high relevance to the study’s objectives. The third stage was to evaluate the methodological quality of a study; we selected peer-reviewed published papers and websites recognized as trustworthy sources of information. The search yielded 143 articles; five met the inclusion criteria and were subjected to the definition of health security. Despite proposed definitions, agreement has yet to be reached on the content and scope of health security. Another main finding is that health security requires more state and international collaboration efforts to reach Global Health Security. To the best of our knowledge, no known government body or organization is responsible for governing health security in Saudi Arabia. However, the current study presents a definition of health security and differentiates it from the public health approach, in addition to emphasizing the importance of governing the related health sectors within each country in order to improve health security and have a positive impact on overall Global Health Security.