| 1. |
- Allen, Elizabeth Palchik, et al.
(författare)
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Health facility management and access : a qualitative analysis of challenges to seeking healthcare for children under five in Uganda
- 2017
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Ingår i: Health Policy and Planning. - : Oxford University Press. - 0268-1080 .- 1460-2237. ; 32:7, s. 934-942
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- While several studies have documented the various barriers that caretakers of children under five routinely confront when seeking healthcare in Uganda, few have sought to capture the ways in which caretakers themselves prioritize their own barriers to seeking services. To that end, we asked focus groups of caretakers to list their five greatest challenges to seeking care on behalf of children under five. Using qualitative content analysis, we grouped responses according to four categories: (1) geographical access barriers; (2) facility supplies, staffing, and infrastructural barriers; (3) facility management and administration barriers (e.g. health worker professionalism, absenteeism and customer care); and (4) household barriers related to financial circumstances, domestic conflicts with male partners and a stated lack of knowledge about health-related issues. Among all focus groups, caretakers mentioned supplies, staffing and infrastructure barriers most often and facility management and administration barriers the least. Caretakers living furthest from public facilities (8-10 km) more commonly mentioned geographical barriers to care and barriers related to financial and other personal circumstances. Caretakers who lived closest to health facilities mentioned facility management and administration barriers twice as often as those who lived further away. While targeting managerial barriers is vitally important-and increasingly popular among national planners and donors-it should be done while recognizing that alleviating such barriers may have a more muted effect on caretakers who are geographically harder to reach - and by extension, those whose children have an increased risk of mortality. In light of calls for greater equity in child survival programming - and given the limited resource envelopes that policymakers often have at their disposal - attention to the barriers considered most vital among caretakers in different settings should be weighed.
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| 2. |
- Ameh, Soter, et al.
(författare)
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Quality of integrated chronic disease care in rural South Africa : user and provider perspectives
- 2017
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Ingår i: Health Policy and Planning. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0268-1080 .- 1460-2237. ; 32:2, s. 257-266
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The integrated chronic disease management (ICDM) model was introduced as a response to the dual burden of HIV/AIDS and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in South Africa, one of the first of such efforts by an African Ministry of Health. The aim of the ICDM model is to leverage HIV programme innovations to improve the quality of chronic disease care. There is a dearth of literature on the perspectives of healthcare providers and users on the quality of care in the novel ICDM model. This paper describes the viewpoints of operational managers and patients regarding quality of care in the ICDM model. In 2013, we conducted a case study of the seven PHC facilities in the rural Agincourt sub-district in northeast South Africa. Focus group discussions (n = 8) were used to obtain data from 56 purposively selected patients >= 18 years. In-depth interviews were conducted with operational managers of each facility and the sub-district health manager. Donabedian's structure, process and outcome theory for service quality evaluation underpinned the conceptual framework in this study. Qualitative data were analysed, with MAXQDA 2 software, to identify 17 a priori dimensions of care and unanticipated themes that emerged during the analysis. The manager and patient narratives showed the inadequacies in structure (malfunctioning blood pressure machines and staff shortage); process (irregular prepacking of drugs); and outcome (long waiting times). There was discordance between managers and patients regarding reasons for long patient waiting time which managers attributed to staff shortage and missed appointments, while patients ascribed it to late arrival of managers to the clinics. Patients reported anti-hypertension drug stock-outs (structure); sub-optimal defaulter-tracing (process); rigid clinic appointment system (process). Emerging themes showed that patients reported HIV stigmatisation in the community due to defaulter-tracing activities of home-based carers, while managers reported treatment of chronic diseases by traditional healers and reduced facility-related HIV stigma because HIV and NCD patients attended the same clinic. Leveraging elements of HIV programmes for NCDs, specifically hypertension management, is yet to be achieved in the study setting in part because of malfunctioning blood pressure machines and anti-hypertension drug stock-outs. This has implications for the nationwide scale up of the ICDM model in South Africa and planning of an integrated chronic disease care in other low-and middle-income countries.
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| 4. |
- Bogg, Lennart, et al.
(författare)
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The cost of coverage : rural health insurance in China
- 1996
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Ingår i: Health Policy and Planning. - : Oxford University Press. - 0268-1080 .- 1460-2237. ; 11:3, s. 238-52
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- China has undergone great economic and social change since 1978 with far reaching implications for the health care system and ultimately for the health status of the population. The Chinese Medical Reform of the 1980s made cost recovery a primary objective. The urban population is mostly protected by generous government health insurance. A high share government budget is allocated to urban health care. Rural cooperative health insurance reached a peak in the mid-1970s when 90% of the rural population were covered. In the 1980s rural cooperative health insurance collapsed and present coverage is less than 8%. The decline has been accompanied by reports of growing equity problems in the financing of and access to health care. This article is the first in a four-year study of the impact on equity of the changes in Chinese health care financing. The article examines the relationship between rural cooperative health insurance as the explanatory variable and health care expenditure, curative vs. preventive expenditure and tertiary curative care expenditure as dependent variables using a natural experimental design with a 'twin' county as a control. The findings support the hypothesis that cooperative health insurance will induce higher growth of health care expenditure. The findings also support the hypothesis that cooperative health insurance will lead to a shift from preventive medicine to curative medicine and to a higher level of tertiary curative care expenditure. The empirical evidence from the Chinese counties is contradicting World Bank health financing policies.
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| 5. |
- Bozorgmehr, Kayvan, et al.
(författare)
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Trade liberalization and tuberculosis incidence : a longitudinal multi-level analysis in 22 high burden countries between 1990 and 2010
- 2014
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Ingår i: Health Policy and Planning. - : Oxford University Press. - 0268-1080 .- 1460-2237. ; 29:3, s. 328-351
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- BACKGROUND Trade liberalization is promoted by the World Trade Organization (WTO) through a complex architecture of binding trade agreements. This type of trade, however, has the potential to modify the upstream and proximate determinants of tuberculosis (TB) infection. We aimed to analyse the association between trade liberalization and TB incidence in 22 high-burden TB countries between 1990 and 2010. METHODS and findings A longitudinal multi-level linear regression analysis was performed using five different measures of trade liberalization as exposure [WTO membership, duration of membership, trade as % of gross domestic product, and components of both the Economic Freedom of the World Index (EFI4) and the KOF Index of Globalization (KOF1)]. We adjusted for a wide range of factors, including differences in human development index (HDI), income inequality, debts, polity patterns, conflict, overcrowding, population stage transition, health system financing, case detection rates and HIV prevalence.None of the five trade indicators was significantly associated with TB incidence in the crude analysis. Any positive effect of EFI4 on (Log-) TB incidence over time was confounded by differences in socio-economic development (HDI), HIV prevalence and health financing indicators. The adjusted TB incidence rate ratio of WTO member countries was significantly higher [RR: 1.60; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.12-2.29] when compared with non-member countries. CONCLUSION We found no association between specific aggregate indicators of trade liberalization and TB incidence. Our analyses provide evidence of a significant association between WTO membership and higher TB incidence, which suggests a possible conflict between the architecture of WTO agreements and TB-related Millennium Development Goals. Further research is needed, particularly on the relation between the aggregate trade indices used in this study and the hypothesized mediators and also on sector-specific indices, specific trade agreements and other (non-TB) health outcomes.
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| 6. |
- Byskov, Jens, et al.
(författare)
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A systems perspective on the importance of global health strategy developments for accomplishing today’s Sustainable Development Goals
- 2019
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Ingår i: Health Policy and Planning. - : Oxford University Press. - 0268-1080 .- 1460-2237. ; 34:9, s. 635-645
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Priority setting within health systems has not led to accountable, fair and sustainable solutions to improving population health. Providers, users and other stakeholders each have their own health and service priorities based on selected evidence, own values, expertise and preferences. Based on a historical account, this article analyses if contemporary health systems are appropriate to optimize population health within the framework of cross cutting targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We applied a scoping review approach to identify and review literature of scientific databases and other programmatic web and library-based documents on historical and contemporary health systems policies and strategies at the global level. Early literature supported the 1977 launching of the global target of Health for All by the year 2000. Reviewed literature was used to provide a historical overview of systems components of global health strategies through describing the conceptualizations of health determinants, user involvement and mechanisms of priority setting over time, and analysing the importance of historical developments on barriers and opportunities to accomplish the SDGs. Definitions, scope and application of health systems-associated priority setting fluctuated and main health determinants and user influence on global health systems and priority setting remained limited. In exploring reasons for the identified lack of SDG-associated health systems and priority setting processes, we discuss issues of accountability, vested interests, ethics and democratic legitimacy as conditional for future sustainability of population health. To accomplish the SDGs health systems must engage beyond their own sector boundary. New approaches to Health in All Policies and One Health may be conducive for scaling up more democratic and inclusive priority setting processes based on proper process guidelines from successful pilots. Sustainable development depends on population preferences supported by technical and managerial expertise.
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| 9. |
- Choulagai, Bishnu P., et al.
(författare)
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A cluster-randomized evaluation of an intervention to increase skilled birth attendant utilization in mid- and far-western Nepal
- 2017
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Ingår i: Health Policy and Planning. - : Oxford University Press. - 0268-1080 .- 1460-2237. ; 32:8, s. 1092-1101
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Skilled birth attendant (SBA) utilization is low in remote and rural areas of Nepal. We designed and implemented an evaluation to assess the effectiveness of a five-component intervention that addressed previously identified barriers to SBA services in mid- and far-western Nepal. We randomly and equally allocated 36 village development committees with low SBA utilization among 1-year intervention and control groups. The eligible participants for the survey were women that had delivered a baby within the past 12 months preceding the survey. Implementation was administered by trained health volunteers, youth groups, mothers' groups and health facility management committee members. Post-intervention, we used difference-in-differences and mixed-effects regression models to assess and analyse any increase in the utilization of skilled birth care and antenatal care (ANC) services. All analyses were done by intention to treat. Our trial registration number was ISRCTN78892490 (http://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN78892490). Interviewees included 1746 and 2098 eligible women in the intervention and control groups, respectively. The 1-year intervention was effective in increasing the use of skilled birth care services (OR = 1.57; CI 1.19-2.08); however, the intervention had no effect on the utilization of ANC services. Expanding the intervention with modifications, e.g. mobilizing more active and stable community groups, ensuring adequate human resources and improving quality of services as well as longer or repeated interventions will help achieve greater effect in increasing the utilization of SBA.
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| 10. |
- Colombini, Manuela, et al.
(författare)
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Agenda setting and framing of gender-based violence in Nepal : how it became a health issue.
- 2016
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Ingår i: Health Policy and Planning. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 0268-1080 .- 1460-2237. ; 31:4, s. 493-503
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Gender-based violence (GBV) has been addressed as a policy issue in Nepal since the mid 1990s, yet it was only in 2010 that Nepal developed a legal and policy framework to combat GBV. This article draws on the concepts of agenda setting and framing to analyse the historical processes by which GBV became legitimized as a health policy issue in Nepal and explored factors that facilitated and constrained the opening and closing of windows of opportunity. The results presented are based on a document analysis of the policy and regulatory framework around GBV in Nepal. A content analysis was undertaken. Agenda setting for GBV policies in Nepal evolved over many years and was characterized by the interplay of political context factors, actors and multiple frames. The way the issue was depicted at different times and by different actors played a key role in the delay in bringing health onto the policy agenda. Women's groups and less powerful Ministries developed gender equity and development frames, but it was only when the more powerful human rights frame was promoted by the country's new Constitution and the Office of the Prime Minister that legislation on GBV was achieved and a domestic violence bill was adopted, followed by a National Plan of Action. This eventually enabled the health frame to converge around the development of implementation policies that incorporated health service responses. Our explicit incorporation of framing within the Kindgon model has illustrated how important it is for understanding the emergence of policy issues, and the subsequent debates about their resolution. The framing of a policy problem by certain policy actors, affects the development of each of the three policy streams, and may facilitate or constrain their convergence. The concept of framing therefore lends an additional depth of understanding to the Kindgon agenda setting model.
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