Publication: The Realities of Primary Care: Variation in Quality of Care Across Nine Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa
Date
2021-04
ISSN
Published
2021-04
Author(s)
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted
the centrality of primary care in protecting people’s health
and well-being during and beyond crises. It has also
provided an opportunity to strengthen and redesign primary
care so that it will better serve its purpose. However,
to-date there is limited evidence on the quality of service
delivery in primary care. Service Delivery Indicators
surveys have attempted to fill this gap. Using Service
Delivery Indicators surveys of 7,810 health facilities and
66,151 health care providers in nine Sub-Saharan African
countries, this paper investigates the quality of care
across five domains to understand a citizen’s experience of
primary care in his/her country. The results indicate
substantial heterogeneity in the quality of primary care
service delivery between and within countries. The
availability of basic equipment, infrastructure, and
essential medicines varies—public facilities, facilities in
rural areas, and non-hospitals are more lacking compared
with private facilities, urban facilities, and hospitals. In
terms of patient care, health care providers’ ability to
correctly diagnose and treat common health conditions is low
and variably distributed. COVID-19 has catalyzed a long
overdue health system redesign effort, and the Service
Delivery Indicators surveys offer an opportunity to examine
carefully the quality of service delivery, with an eye
toward health system reform.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Andrews, Kathryn; Conner, Ruben; Gatti, Roberta; Sharma, Jigyasa. 2021. The Realities of Primary Care: Variation in Quality of Care Across Nine Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9607. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/35402 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
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