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REACT: Health Related Priority Setting, Tanzania


Health systems authorities in many low many low income countries perceive current management capacity as insufficient to be given full responsibility for priority setting. Moreover, without effective decentralization of the priority setting process, the capacity will never increase. District level services cater for a majority of service contacts. Thus, a District focus is vital to improve quality, equity, accessibility and affordability of care of the overall country services

Funding:  EU
Principle investigators: Jens Byskov / Øystein Evjen Olsen: Blystad responsible for one work-package
Partners:

  • DBL – Institute for Health Research and Development, Denmark
  • CIH – Centre for International Health, University of Bergen, Norway
  • ITM - Institute of Tropical Medicine – Department of Public Health, Belgium
  • UISPH - Umeå International School of Public Health,  Sweden
  • IDS - Institute of Development Studies, UDSM, Tanzania
  • NIMR - National Institute for Medical Research, Tanzania
  • PHCI - Primary Health Care Institute, Iringa, Tanzania
  • CPHR – Centre for Public Health Research of Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI), Kenya
  • IAGAS – Institute of Anthropology and African Studies. UON,  Nairobi, Kenya
  • DCM – Department of Community Medicine of UNZA, Zambia
  • INESOR – Institute of Economic and Social Research, UNZA, Zambia
  • Centre for Bioethics, University of Toronto, Canada

Duration: 2005 – 2010

Focus Area

The project goal is to improve equity; access, affordability and quality of health care. It does this by introducing as well as evaluating improved priority setting according to the Accountability for Reasonableness (AFR) framework in Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia. AFR provides practical guidance for decision makers. It is applied by decision makers in making fair balances within finite resource limits between mainly expert defined need, programmatic and other supply pressures, stakeholder interests and demands from users, their representatives and their communities.

Approach

  • Undertaking participatory case study and action research designed with respect to the use of quantitative and qualitative methods.
  • Applying AFR and continuously assessing and addressing gaps in AFR conditions.
  • Evaluating AFR processes and consequences for service management and output, immediate outcomes and health impact.

Last updated 21.3.2012