Title: Influencing health systems
Description: The first chapter explores the effects of donor financing for HIV/AIDS on health systems in sub-Saharan Africa. Using disaggregated data on health development assistance and multiple measures of heath service coverage, I analyze the effect of HIV/AIDS funding on the delivery of non-targeted health services from 1995-2006. I find evidence that in the short-run funding for HIV/AIDS is associated with lower coverage of health services, in particular immunizations. These findings support the view that HIV/AIDS programs have not strengthened health systems and may have had unintended effects on non-targeted health services in sub-Saharan Africa. The second chapter evaluates the effect of removing user fees on the utilization of maternity services in Ghana. In 2003, Ghana introduced a delivery fee exemption policy, initially rolling the policy out to 4 regions, creating a natural experiment to evaluate the effect of user fees on health service coverage. I find that this policy was effective at increasing the proportion of births supervised by trained medical professionals, delivered in hospitals, and by public providers but may have had an adverse effect on the quality of services delivered.

The delivery fee exemption policy was successful at targeting services to pregnant women and may represent an effective strategy where other forms of targeting are more difficult to implement. The third chapter explores the determinants of recent Canadian physician migration. I find that Canadian trained physicians were less likely to outward migrate and more likely to return home and that many of the departures seen during the 1990s were actually temporary. These findings suggest that, among other factors, additional education and training opportunities abroad may have accounted for a large share of outward migrations seen during the 1990s.