Subsidies, Information, and the Timing of Children’s Health Care in Mali
Sustained progress in reducing child mortality requires better care for children who are acutely ill. This paper studies how health care subsidies and health workers providing information on symptoms affect the overuse and underuse of primary care,...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2020
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/880531606763203323/Subsidies-Information-and-the-Timing-of-Children-s-Health-Care-in-Mali http://hdl.handle.net/10986/34841 |
| Summary: | Sustained progress in reducing child
mortality requires better care for children who are acutely
ill. This paper studies how health care subsidies and health
workers providing information on symptoms affect the overuse
and underuse of primary care, which depend not just on
absolute levels of demand, but also on whether care is
received when the child is actually sick. In a randomized
controlled trial of 1,768 children in Mali, the study
collected a unique panel of nine weeks of daily symptom and
health care use data to study the impact of each policy on
demand conditional on need for care, as defined by World
Health Organization standards. Subsidies substantially
increase care when it is medically indicated, while overuse
remains rare. Health worker visits have no aggregate effect
on demand, but they may help the youngest children take
advantage of the subsidy. |
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