The guide provides an overview of how patient pathway studies can be designed and implemented to meet this goal. The studies featured in the guide offer a wealth of insights and lessons from research carried out in different health systems. By examining the design options of different study types, implementers and decision-makers can incorporate valuable knowledge into their own assessments. The selected studies encompass different world regions, target populations, health programs and implementation settings, underscoring the importance of tailoring research approaches to the specific contexts in which they are implemented. Throughout the process of compiling the guide, the writing team was astonished by the wealth of available research studies on care-seeking journeys and people’s decision-making on provider use. Drawing on the available literature and implementation experience, the guide highlights both design issues and practical aspects of conducting patient pathway analytics. While every researcher will be faced with a new set of questions and local health system characteristics, there are some common study features and generalizable lessons. Through this guide, the reader can learn about different options ranging from qualitative behavioral studies by social scientists to large quantitative assessments, potentially using large routine databases that require data scientist skills. The guide aims to present study methods, tools, resources, and carefully selected examples of PPA methods to assist with study design. It considers that needs vary based on health system, target populations, disease focus, and policy question. This guide provides the ingredients (resources) and some recipes (methods) from our literature search. However, there is room for adaptation, innovation and expansion of the PPA methods to answer the research questions of a particular assessment.