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Making health markets work better for poor people
Markets for health-related goods and services are widespread. In many developing countries poor people seek some proportion of their health care in these markets.
Understanding health markets and how they expand or contract access to quality health services for the poor is central to many other aspects of health system strengthening. It can assist us in: improving regulatory and policy frameworks, ensuring health care providers are appropriately trained and supported to provide appropriate care, ensuring oversight from informed service users and ensuring financial support mechanisms to enhance service access for the poorest.
FHS - Working closely with innovators
• In China we are collaborating with counties implementing rural health insurance and plan to explore how to make better use of the media and IT-based health management information systems to improve performance
• In India the FHS team has developed a scoping study on informal providers and are developing links to ongoing interventions.
• In Bangladesh the Shastya Sena network of village doctors was formed as a product of the FHS intervention to reduce harmful practices and members of this network have a agreed to adhere to certain treatment protocols. This work is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and SIDA-SAREC.
• In Cambodia we have a close collaboration with an NGO mobilizing people with diabetes to manage their disease and to use public and private suppliers of drugs and advice more effectively
• In Afghanistan we are contracting with NGOs for service provision. Scoping work on women’s deliveries has shown a lack of providers and poorly articulated demand for delivery services.
• In Uganda we are working on a voucher scheme for the provision of institutional deliveries funded by the Gates Foundation. The project has so far generated evidence that confirms that the existing safety net mechanisms are inadequate and disparities still exist in accessing health services.
• In Nigeria a programme to improve performance of PMVs has been designed and discussions are being held about developing a substantial intervention.
What's new!
Working with Rockefeller Foundation and Results for Development Institute to better understand the role of the private sector in health systems in developing countries.
FHS researchers have a letter in the British Medical Journal in response to the recent OXFAM report on the private sector and health
>> Read the BMJ letter in response to OXFAM
Download a poster presentation on our markets work
>> Poster presentation
Read our blog from the International Health Economics Association conference, July 2009
>> Visit the blog
Who are the “blind optimists”? A comment on the Oxfam report
>> More
Rockefeller Reports on the Role of the Private Sector in Health Systems in Developing Countries now available online.
>> read here
The latest edition of id21 insights on making health markets work for poor people, produced in collaboration with Future Health Systems, is now available.
Participation in the Prince Mahidol Award Conference 2009
Mainstreaming Health into Public Policies, Bangkok.
>>Read more about the panel we participated in
Nigeria conference
Future Health Systems held a conference in Abuja which was organised by the University of Ibadan to bring together academics, policy makers, civil society and private sector innovators and entrepreneurs to share strategies for making health markets work better for poor people.
The conference was stimulated by FHS research and communications work on marketised health systems and University of Ibadan research into the role of Patent Medicine Vendors (PMVs) in improving access to appropriate, quality medicines for malaria and insecticide treated bed nets.
>> Read more
A meeting was held in Dhaka from August 24-26, 2008 organised by ICDDR,B and the Institute of Development Studies. The purpose of the meeting was to:
- contribute to the development of a framework for understanding alternative approaches for making health-related markets work better for poor people
- build greater understanding of existing and proposed innovations in highly marketised health systems in Bangladesh and other Asian countries
- establish a programme to facilitate a learning approach for improving the capacity of highly marketized health systems to meet health-related needs of the poor.
Further reading:
Project framework
Other publications
- Bhuiya A, ed. 2009, ‘Health for the rural masses: Insights from Chakaria: ICDDR,B’
- Bishai D, Champion C (2009), ‘Innovative Service Models to Improve Quality and Access, Future Health Systems Working Paper 5
- Bishai DM, Shah NM, Walker DG, Brieger WR, Peters DH. Social Franchising to Improve Quality and Access in Private Health Care in Developing Countries. Harvard Health Policy Review. Vol. 9, No. 1, Spring 2008: 184-197
- Bloom G, Kanjilal B, Peters DH (2008), ‘Regulating Health Care Markets in China and India’, Health Affairs 27.4: 952–63
- Bloom, G, Champion C,Lucas H, Rahman MH, Bhuiya A, Oladepo O and Peters D. 2008. Health markets and future health systems: innovation
for equity (pdf) Global Forum Update on Research for Health Volume 5
- Cross J, MacGregor H (2009), ‘Who Are ‘Informal Health Providers’ and What Do They Do? Perspectives from Medical Anthropology’, IDS Working Paper 2009–7
- Kanjilal B, Mondal S, Samantha T, Mondal A, Singh (2007), ‘A Parallel Health Care Market: Rural Medical Practitioners in West Bengal’, India, Institute of Health Management Research, Jaipur, India
- Kiwanuka SN, Ekirapa EK, Peterson S, Okui O, Peters D, Hafizur RM, et al, Access to and Utilization of Health Services for the Poor in Uganda: A Systematic Review of Available Evidence, Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg, 102.11:1067–74
- Oladepo O, Kabiru S, Adeoye B W, Oshiname F, Ofi B, Oladepo M, Ogungbemi O, Brieger W R, Bloom G, and Peters D H, with input from Professor Adetokunbo Lucas. Malaria Treatment in Nigeria: The Role of Patent Medicine Vendors. (pdf) Innovations and knowledge for future health systems for the poor, Policy Brief March 2008 · No: 01
- Oladepo O, Salami KK, Adeoye BW, Oshiname F, Ofi B, Oladepo M, Ogunbemi O, Lawal A, Brieger WR, Bloom G and Peters DH Malaria treatment and policy in three regions in Nigeria: The role of patent medicine vendors. FHS Working paper 1, Nigeria series, September 2007
- Peters D H, Noor A N, Singh L P, Kakar F K, Hansen P M, Burnham G, A balanced scorecard for health services in Afghanistan, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, February 2007, 85.2
- Shah N, Peters D, Brieger B (2009), ‘Can interventions improve health services from informal private providers in low and middle-income countries? A comprehensive review of the literature’ submitted May 12 to Health Policy and Planning
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