Lao PDR Health Center Workforce Survey : Findings from a Nationally-Representative Health Center and Health Center Worker Survey
While on-track for child health and maternal health MDGs, Lao PDR continues to have some of the worst maternal and child health (MCH) outcomes, both globally and in the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) region. Under-five and infant mortality rates are h...
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| Format: | Report |
| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Vientiane
2016
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2016/07/26611675/lao-pdr-health-center-workforce-survey-findings-nationally-representative-health-center-health-center-worker-survey http://hdl.handle.net/10986/24944 |
| Summary: | While on-track for child health and
maternal health MDGs, Lao PDR continues to have some of the
worst maternal and child health (MCH) outcomes, both
globally and in the East Asia and Pacific (EAP) region.
Under-five and infant mortality rates are high relative to
GDP per capita, and utilization of essential health services
is low, given significant demand-side barriers including
physical access, cultural, and financial barriers.
Furthermore, about a third of all children under-five remain
underweight and almost half are stunted. Lao PDR is hence
off-track on the nutrition-related MDG. In addition to poor
aggregate measures, there are significant economic, urban
rural, geographic, and ethnic group-related inequalities in
health and nutrition outcomes. This policy note provides a
snapshot of human resources for health (HRH) in health
centers in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR)
based on an analysis of a health facility survey (the
UFGE-CNP health center survey) that collected information
from a nationally-representative sample of 120 public health
centers (HCs) from 2013 to 2014. This survey was conducted
as a baseline for health sector reform plans, to inform
policymaking as Lao PDR scales-up programs to attain
health-related MDGs, expand basic health services, and
attain universal health coverage (UHC). This note
complements a related health financing note which includes
health center financing data from the same survey. Key
findings from that note include low government health
spending, associated with a high reliance on out-of-pocket
(OOP) spending and external financing, which translates to
underfunding of HCs (especially non-wage recurrent
expenditure) and dependence on OOP revenue from revolving
drug funds (RDFs). |
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