L’accès des indigents aux services de santé au Burkina Faso : un problème public ?

Au Burkina Faso, comme dans bien d’autres pays d’Afrique, les indigents demeurent exclus de l’accès aux services de santé, malgré la mise en oeuvre de politiques publiques qui s’étaient, entre autres objectifs, fixé celui d’améliorer leur sort. L’une des propositions d’explication à cette occultation de l’équité par les acteurs sociaux impliqués dans la mise en oeuvre de ces politiques est que la situation d’exclusion des indigents n’est pas comprise comme un problème public auquel une solution doit être trouvée. À l’aide d’une enquête de type socioanthropologique de terrain et d’un cadre d’analyse des politiques publiques, cet article vise à vérifier cette proposition au moyen de données empiriques recueillies lors d’une étude de cas au Burkina Faso. Ces données sont organisées en fonction des neuf composantes qui, conceptuellement, permettent de comprendre la manière dont une situation peut devenir un problème public.As in many other African countries, the indigent population in Burkina Faso has no access to health services, and this despite the institution of public policies that had, among other objectives, an improvement in the circumstances of the indigent. A proposed explanation for the lack of attention to equity by policy-makers and other actors involved in the implementation of these policies is that the situation of the indigent is not defined as a public problem in need of solution. This article seeks to confirm this explanation, using a socio-anthropological field inquiry and a public policy analytical framework. Empirical data were collected during fieldwork in Burkina Faso. The data are organised according to nine elements which provide a conceptual tool for understanding the manner in which such a situation could come to be defined as a public problem

Kingdon à Bamako : conceptualiser l’implantation d’une politique publique de santé en Afrique

Cet article est principalement d’ordre théorique. Il vise à voir comment une théorie issue de l’étude des politiques publiques associée à des concepts de l’anthropologie du développement permet de comprendre pourquoi l’implantation d’une politique de santé en Afrique de l’Ouest, l’initiative de Bamako, n’a pas produit les résultats escomptés (efficacité versus équité). L’application du prolongement de la théorie des courants de Kingdon proposée par Lemieux ainsi que l’étude du rôle des acteurs nous permettent de formuler cinq hypothèses de recherche qui rendent intelligible cette dérive. Nous tentons de montrer l’intérêt heuristique des propositions de Kingdon et de Lemieux, puis nous proposons un cadre d’analyse.In this mainly theoretical article, the author seeks to understand how a theory issued from the study of public policies associated with an anthropology of development lens helps to understand why the implementation of a health policy in West Africa, the Bamako Initiative, has not fulfilled its promises (effectiveness versus equity). The application of the extension of the agenda setting theory by Kingdon proposed by Lemieux (three streams approach), as well as the role of the actors, lead us towards five research hypothesis that explain the problem. The heuristic interest of Kingdon’s and Lemieux’s propositions are shown and an analytical framework is suggested

The concept of mechanism from a realist approach: a scoping review to facilitate its operationalization in public health program evaluation

International audienceBackground: Public health interventions are complex by nature, and their evaluation requires unpacking their intervention logic and their interactions with open social systems. By focusing on the interrelationships between context, mechanism, and outcome, Pawson and Tilley's realist approach appears a promising innovation for public health-related evaluation works. However, and as expected of any methodological innovation, this approach is being constructed gradually by answering the multiple challenges to its operationalization that fall in its path. One of these challenges, users of this approach agree on, is the necessity of clarifying its key concept of mechanism.Method: We first collected the definitions of mechanism from published works of Pawson and colleagues. Secondly, a scoping review was conducted to identify the ones quoted by users of the realist approach for evaluating public health interventions (1997–2012). We then appraised the clarity and precision of this concept against the three dimensions defined by Daigneault and Jacobs " term, sense and referent. "Results: Of the 2344 documents identified in the scoping review, 49 documents were included. Term: Users of the realist approach use adjectives qualifying the term mechanism that were not specifically endorsed by Pawson and colleagues. Sense: None of the attributes stated by Pawson and colleagues has been listed in all of the documents analyzed, and some contributions clarified its attributes. Referent: The concept of mechanism within a realist approach can be ascribed to theory-based evaluation, complex social interventions, and critical realism.Conclusion: This review led us to reconsider the concept of mechanism within the realist approach by confronting the theoretical stance of its proponents to the practical one of its users. This resulted in a clearer, more precise definition of the concept of mechanism which may in turn trigger further improvements in the way the realist approach is applied in evaluative practice in public health and potentially beyond. A mechanism is hidden but real, is an element of reasoning and reactions of agents in regard to the resources available in a given context to bring about changes through the implementation of an intervention, and evolves within an open space-time and social system of relationships

Identification of poor households for premium exemptions in Ghana’s National Health Insurance Scheme: empirical analysis of three strategies

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the effectiveness of three alternative strategies to identify poor households: means testing (MT), proxy means testing (PMT) and participatory wealth ranking (PWR) in urban, rural and semi-urban settings in Ghana. The primary motivation was to inform implementation of the National Health Insurance policy of premium exemptions for the poorest households. METHODS: Survey of 145-147 households per setting to collect data on consumption expenditure to estimate MT measures and of household assets to estimate PMT measures. We organized focus group discussions to derive PWR measures. We compared errors of inclusion and exclusion of PMT and PWR relative to MT, the latter being considered the gold standard measure to identify poor households. RESULTS: Compared to MT, the errors of exclusion and inclusion of PMT ranged between 0.46-0.63 and 0.21-0.36, respectively, and of PWR between 0.03-0.73 and 0.17-0.60, respectively, depending on the setting. CONCLUSION: Proxy means testing and PWR have considerable errors of exclusion and inclusion in comparison with MT. PWR is a subjective measure of poverty and has appeal because it reflects community's perceptions on poverty. However, as its definition of the poor varies across settings, its acceptability as a uniform strategy to identify the poor in Ghana may be questionable. PMT and MT are potential strategies to identify the poor, and their relative societal attractiveness should be judged in a broader economic analysis. This study also holds relevance to other programmes that require identification of the poor in low-income countries

Studying complex interventions : reflections from the FEMHealth project on evaluating fee exemption policies in West Africa and Morocco

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Understanding home delivery in a context of user fee reduction: a cross-sectional mixed methods study in rural Burkina Faso

Background: Several African countries have recently reduced/removed user fees for maternal care, producing considerable increases in the utilization of delivery services. Still, across settings, a conspicuous number of women continue to deliver at home. This study explores reasons for home delivery in rural Burkina Faso, where a successful user fee reduction policy is in place since 2007. Methods: The study took place in the Nouna Health District and adopted a triangulation mixed methods design, combining quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis methods. The quantitative component relied on use of data from the 2011 round of a panel household survey conducted on 1130 households. We collected data on utilization of delivery services from all women who had experienced a delivery in the previous twelve months and investigated factors associated with home delivery using multivariate logistic regression. The qualitative component relied on a series of open-ended interviews with 55 purposely selected households and 13 village leaders. We analyzed data using a mixture of inductive and deductive coding. Results: Of the 420 women who reported a delivery, 47 (11 %) had delivered at home. Random effect multivariate logistic regression revealed a clear, albeit not significant trend for women from a lower socio-economic status and living outside an area to deliver at home. Distance to the health facility was found to be positively significantly associated with home delivery. Qualitative findings indicated that women and their households valued facility-based delivery above home delivery, suggesting that cultural factors do not shape the decision where to deliver. Qualitative findings confirmed that geographical access, defined in relation to the condition of the roads and the high transaction costs associated with travel, and the cost-sharing fees still applied at point of use represent two major barriers to access facility-based delivery. Conclusions: Findings suggest that the current policy in Burkina Faso, as similar policies in the region, should be expanded to remove fees at point of use completely and to incorporate benefits/solutions to support the transport of women in labor to the health facility in due time

Inequities and their determinants in coverage of maternal health services in Burkina Faso

Background: Poor and marginalized segments of society often display the worst health status due to limited access to health enhancing interventions. It follows that in order to enhance the health status of entire populations, inequities in access to health care services need to be addressed as an inherent element of any effort targeting Universal Health Coverage. In line with this observation and the need to generate evidence on the equity status quo in sub-Saharan Africa, we assessed the magnitude of the inequities and their determinants in coverage of maternal health services in Burkina Faso. Methods: We assessed coverage for three basic maternal care services (at least four antenatal care visits, facility-based delivery, and at least one postnatal care visit) using data from a cross-sectional household survey including a total of 6655 mostly rural, poor women who had completed a pregnancy in the 24 months prior to the survey date. We assessed equity along the dimensions of household wealth, distance to the health facility, and literacy using both simple comparative measures and concentration indices. We also ran hierarchical random effects regression to confirm the presence or absence of inequities due to household wealth, distance, and literacy, while controlling for potential confounders. Results: Coverage of facility based delivery was high (89%), but suboptimal for at least four antenatal care visits (44%) and one postnatal care visit (53%). We detected inequities along the dimensions of household wealth, literacy and distance. Service coverage was higher among the least poor, those who were literate, and those living closer to a health facility. We detected a significant positive association between household wealth and all outcome variables, and a positive association between literacy and facility-based delivery. We detected a negative association between living farther away from the catchment facility and all outcome variables. Conclusion: Existing inequities in maternal health services in Burkina Faso are likely going to jeopardize the achievement of Universal Health Coverage. It is important that policy makers continue to strengthen and monitor the implementation of strategies that promote proportionate universalism and forge multi-sectoral approach in dealing with social determinants of inequities in maternal health services coverage