It was , however , evident that many interventions have worked successfully in poor communities and positive equity impacts can be inferred from interventions that work with types of providers predominantly used by poor people .
Background There has been a growing interest in the role of the private for-profit sector in health service provision in low- and middle-income countries .
The private sector represents an important source of care for all socioeconomic groups , including the poorest and substantial concerns have been raised about the quality of care it provides .
Interventions have been developed to address these technical failures and simultaneously take advantage of the potential for involving private providers to achieve public health goals .
Limited information is available on the extent to which these interventions have successfully exp and ed access to quality health services for poor and disadvantaged population s. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by presenting the results of a systematic literature review on the effectiveness of working with private for-profit providers to reach the poor .
Impact on malaria morbidity of a programme supplying insecticide treated nets in children aged under 2 years in Tanzania: community cross sectional study
Abstract Objective : To assess the impact of a social marketing programme for distributing nets treated with insecticide on malarial parasitaemia and anaemia in very young children in an area of high malaria transmission . Design : Community cross sectional study . Annual , cross sectional data were collected at the beginning of the social marketing campaign ( 1997 ) and the subsequent two years . Net ownership and other risk and confounding factors were assessed with a question naire . Blood sample s were taken from the children to assess prevalence of parasitaemia and haemoglobin levels . Setting : 18 villages in the Kilombero and Ulanga districts of southwestern Tanzania . Participants : A r and om sample of children aged under 2 years . Main outcome measures : The presence of any parasitaemia in the peripheral blood sample and the presence of anaemia ( classified as a haemoglobin level of ≤80 g/l ) . Results : Ownership of nets increased rapidly ( treated or not treated nets : from 58 % to 83 % ; treated nets : from 10 % to 61 % ) . The mean haemoglobin level rose from 80 g/l to 89 g/l in the study children in the successive surveys . Overall , the prevalence of anaemia in the study population decreased from 49 % to 26 % in the two years studied . Treated nets had a protective efficacy of 62 % ( 95 % confidence interval 38 % to 77 % ) on the prevalence of parasitaemia and of 63 % ( 27 % to 82 % ) on anaemia . Conclusions : These results show that nets treated with insecticide have a substantial impact on morbidity when distributed in a public health setting
It was , however , evident that many interventions have worked successfully in poor communities and positive equity impacts can be inferred from interventions that work with types of providers predominantly used by poor people .
Background There has been a growing interest in the role of the private for-profit sector in health service provision in low- and middle-income countries .
The private sector represents an important source of care for all socioeconomic groups , including the poorest and substantial concerns have been raised about the quality of care it provides .
Interventions have been developed to address these technical failures and simultaneously take advantage of the potential for involving private providers to achieve public health goals .
Limited information is available on the extent to which these interventions have successfully exp and ed access to quality health services for poor and disadvantaged population s. This paper addresses this knowledge gap by presenting the results of a systematic literature review on the effectiveness of working with private for-profit providers to reach the poor .