This information is highly valuable to health planners, who are often able to conserve program resources by shifting some consumers to private health outlets. These studies, utilizing both household survey and focus-group methods, centered on the health utilization patterns of urban and rural residents, their costs of accessing care, their perceptions of quality, and the willingness of private providers to supply family planning services to their clients. Data analysis indicates that a majority of the populace prefers private providers to public sector care, and that the reach of these providers into remote areas is far greater than public health services.
Clients also appear to be willing to pay for what they perceive as quality care.
Commission members voted unanimously to proceed with the demonstration projects, which represented an enormous breakthrough at the policy level. The study concluded that price increases per se would not impact adversely on demand, provided that the price differential with other brands remained the same. This interactive computer model is an advanced tool for policy analysis that allows analysts to determine the differential impact of price increases on the market for contraceptives in a given country. In particular, it models the impact on different income groups, thus providing evidence of the range of public subsidies necessary to ensure that benefits flow to poorer consumers. This model has been successfully applied in numerous developing-country settings.