A very large private health sector exists in low-income countries. It consists of a great variety of providers and is used by a wide cross-section of the population. There are substantial concerns about the quality of care given, especially at the more informal end of the range of providers....

Low-income countries are plagued by a high burden of preventable and curable disease as well as unmet need for healthcare, but detailed microeconomic evidence on the relationship between supply-side factors and service use is limited. Causality has rarely been assessed due to the challenges...

Malaria is frequently referred to as a disease of the poor or a disease of poverty. A better understanding of the linkages between malaria and poverty is needed to guide the design of coherent and effective policies and tools to tackle malaria and poverty together. While recognising that there...

User fees have been promoted in low and middle income countries in response to scarce and inequitably distributed resources and are intended to generate revenue that can be used to improve health services. Experience indicates, however, that user fees are likely to result in deterioration of...

Objectives: To determine the extent that malaria treatment expenditures deplete household income and potentially lead to sacrificing of other basic household expenditures. Methods: The study was undertaken in six towns (3 urban and 3 rural) in southeast Nigeria. Pre-tested structured...

Like many other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Ethiopia's human resource problems are impeding progress towards global health targets. These include difficulties of attracting health workers into public service employment, retaining them, and ensuring an equitable distribution between urban...