The Effects of Community Health Worker Visits and Primary Care Subsidies on Health Behavior and Health Outcomes for Children in Urban Mali
Subsidized primary care and community health worker (CHW) visits are important demand side policies in the effort to achieve universal health care for children under five. Causal evidence on the effects of these policies, alone and in interaction,...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2022
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/099242403252213210/IDU01359dc10004d604271093a0014dea8c6313c http://hdl.handle.net/10986/37245 |
| Summary: | Subsidized primary care and community
health worker (CHW) visits are important demand side
policies in the effort to achieve universal health care for
children under five. Causal evidence on the effects of these
policies, alone and in interaction, is still sparse. This
paper reports the effects on diarrhea prevention, curative
care, and incidence as well as anthropometrics for 1649
children from a randomized control trial in Bamako that
cross-randomized CHW visits and access to free health care.
CHW visits improve prevention and subsidies increase the use
of curative care for acute illness, with some indication of
positive interaction effects. There is no evidence of moral
hazard, such as reduced preventive care among families
receiving the subsidy. Although there are no significant
improvements in malnutrition, diarrhea incidence is reduced
by over 70% in the group that receives both subsidies and
CHW. Positive effects are concentrated among children ages 0
to 2. |
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