Principal Investigator: Mylene Lagarde
Start Date: 09 September 2016
End Date: 31 Decemebr 2016
Region: Africa
Keywords: LMICs, finanical incentives, child and maternal health, quality of care, global health, health policy

Many studies have highlighted low quality of care and poor performance of providers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In recognition of the limitations of financial incentives created by low salaries, financial incentives have been recently introduced in many LMICs as a way to improve provider performance.

While promising results have emerged about the ability of such programmes to improve health utilisation, there has been very limited evidence of their impact on quality of care.

This research project aims to address this gap by collecting a unique set of data in Senegal, where financial incentives for child and maternal health indicators in a selection of primary care facilities as part of a randomised field experiment.

To measure quality of care in control and treatment facilities, we used standardised patients (healthy individuals trained to accurately and consistently portray a particular clinical case and to subsequently report the performance of the providers seen against a pre-defined checklist).

Results will provide unique insights into the effects of financial incentives and other determinants of quality of care.

The project is funded by the MRC through its Health Systems Research Initiative and it is undertaken in collaboration with IPDSR at the University Check Anta Diop in Dakar.

For more information, see the project page on the Research Councils UK website.