Health reform and infant mortality in West Bengal, India: an untold story
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used bivariate probit models on birth history data of 6568 children in two districts in West Bengal, an eastern state of India, and found that in post-reform era, health care utilization in the form of institutional delivery has a tendency to enhance the risk of infant mortality, primarily owing to lack of timely services received at the institutions.
Abstract: Though studies have focused on the expansion of coverage of health care utilization after India’s health care reform in 2004–2005 under the National Rural Health Mission, the effect of limited risk protection of the programme, measured by non-availability of services at institutions, has remained under-studied. Using bivariate probit models on birth history data of 6568 children in two districts in West Bengal, an eastern state of India, this paper finds that in post-reform era, health care utilization in the form of institutional delivery has a tendency to enhance the risk of infant mortality, primarily owing to lack of timely services received at the institutions.
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01 Apr 2010
TL;DR: This brief includes the following headings: what is Results-Based Financing (RBF), what makes RBF different?
Abstract: This brief includes the following headings: what is Results-Based Financing (RBF)? What makes RBF different? A growing interest in linking incentives with results; the potential of RBF; avoiding potential pitfalls; RBF holds promise, but careful design, implementation, and evaluation are key; and footnotes.
48 citations
16 Nov 2017
TL;DR: Efficiency and quality of data collected were comparable between the use of tablet devices and traditional paper methods, but data collection performed on smaller mobile phone interfaces was less efficient compared to paper.
Abstract: In this paper, we present our findings on the experiences of West Bengal Community Health Workers (CHWs) in transitioning from paper to tablet- and mobile-based data collection. Through qualitative interviews, usability testing and timed observations, we found that efficiency and quality of data collected were comparable between the use of tablet devices and traditional paper methods, but data collection performed on smaller mobile phone interfaces was less efficient compared to paper. There was no significant difference in the quality of data collected across all three modes. In terms of work practices, we found that while initial interactions with CHWs suggested positive feelings about switching to digital devices, in their actual practices they retained and preferred the use of paper, and had workarounds to circumvent the digital data collection process. While there were foreseeable challenges around individual user experience, such as device familiarity, and application interface flexibility, the more compelling challenge in transitioning CHWs to digital data collection was organizational. The agency of CHWs within organizations, the levels of training with both data practices and devices themselves, and the sense of comfort that the data collectors felt with the overall project emerge as important factors of attention for implementers of new data management practices.
23 citations
Cites background from "Health reform and infant mortality ..."
...It is worth noting that these health workers are involved in maternal and child health (MCH) data gathering, which has shown slow progress in this region of India [10], particularly among rural communities [11, 12]....
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01 Jan 2011
TL;DR: Banerjee and Duflo as discussed by the authors presented a radical re-thinking of the way to fight global poverty by Abhijit V. Banerjee, and Esther Duflo.
Abstract: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Global Poverty by Abhijit V. Banerjee, Esther Duflo.
13 citations
Book•
14 Mar 2013
5 citations
References
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TL;DR: A Commission on Social Determinants of Health is launching, which will review the evidence, raise societal debate, and recommend policies with the goal of improving health of the world's most vulnerable people.
3,670 citations
Book•
26 Apr 2011TL;DR: Banerjee and Duflo as mentioned in this paper pointed out that life for the poor is a much more perilous adventure, denied many of the cushions and advantages that are routinely provided to the more affluent: if they do not have a piped water supply the poor cannot benefit from chlorination; if they cannot afford ready-made breakfast cereals they cannot gain the enriched vitamins and other nutrients; they are routinely denied access to markets; and, they get negative interest rates on their savings, while exorbitant rates are charged on their loans.
Abstract: This title comes from the award-winning founders of the unique and remarkable Abdul Latfi Jameel Poverty Action Laboratory at MIT, a transformative reappraisal of the world of the extreme poor, their lives, desires and frustrations. Billions of government dollars, and thousands of charitable organizations and NGOs are dedicated to helping the world's poor. But much of the work they do is based on assumptions that are untested generalizations at best, flat out harmful misperceptions at worst. Banerjee and Duflo have pioneered the use of randomized control trials in development economics. Work based on these principles, supervised by the Poverty Action Lab at MIT, is being carried out in dozens of countries. Drawing on this and their 15 years of research from Chile to India, Kenya to Indonesia, they have identified wholly new aspects of the behavior of poor people, their needs, and the way that aid or financial investment can affect their lives. Their work transforms certain presumptions: that microfinance is a cure-all, that schooling equals learning, that poverty at the level of 99 cents a day is just a more extreme version of the experience any of us have when our income falls uncomfortably low. Throughout, the authors emphasize that life for the poor is simply not like life for everyone else: it is a much more perilous adventure, denied many of the cushions and advantages that are routinely provided to the more affluent: if they do not have a piped water supply the poor cannot benefit from chlorination; if they cannot afford ready-made breakfast cereals they cannot gain the enriched vitamins and other nutrients; they are routinely denied access to markets; and, they get negative interest rates on their savings, while exorbitant rates are charged on their loans. The daily stress of poverty discourages long-term thinking and often leads to bad decision-making. Add to that the fact the poor are routinely denied the information that might help them manage the nightmarish predicament that in most cases they are born into through no fault of their own. Bannerjee and Duflo are practical visionaries whose meticulous work offers all of us an opportunity to think of a world beyond poverty.
1,152 citations
Book•
13 Oct 2009
TL;DR: A review of quantitative methods and models of impact evaluation can be found in this paper, where the basic issues pertaining to an evaluation of an intervention to reach certain targets and goals are discussed.
Abstract: This book reviews quantitative methods and models of impact evaluation. The formal literature on impact evaluation methods and practices is large, with a few useful overviews. Yet there is a need to put the theory into practice in a hands-on fashion for practitioners. This book also details challenges and goals in other realms of evaluation, including monitoring and evaluation (M&E), operational evaluation, and mixed-methods approaches combining quantitative and qualitative analyses. This book is organized as follows. Chapter two reviews the basic issues pertaining to an evaluation of an intervention to reach certain targets and goals. It distinguishes impact evaluation from related concepts such as M&E, operational evaluation, qualitative versus quantitative evaluation, and ex-ante versus ex post impact evaluation. Chapter three focuses on the experimental design of an impact evaluation, discussing its strengths and shortcomings. Various non-experimental methods exist as well, each of which are discussed in turn through chapters four to seven. Chapter four examines matching methods, including the propensity score matching technique. Chapter five deal with double-difference methods in the context of panel data, which relax some of the assumptions on the potential sources of selection bias. Chapter six reviews the instrumental variable method, which further relaxes assumptions on self-selection. Chapter seven examines regression discontinuity and pipeline methods, which exploit the design of the program itself as potential sources of identification of program impacts. Specifically, chapter eight presents a discussion of how distributional impacts of programs can be measured, including new techniques related to quantile regression. Chapter nine discusses structural approaches to program evaluation, including economic models that can lay the groundwork for estimating direct and indirect effects of a program. Finally, chapter ten discusses the strengths and weaknesses of experimental and non-experimental methods and also highlights the usefulness of impact evaluation tools in policy making.
1,049 citations
"Health reform and infant mortality ..." refers background in this paper
...Essentially, it outlines an impact evaluation technique, which allows correcting the unobserved sample bias and allows incorporating some additional determining variables in the second probit (Khandekar et al. 2010)....
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TL;DR: JSY had a significant effect on increasing antenatal care and in-facility births and emphasise the need for improved targeting of the poorest women and attention to quality of obstetric care in health facilities.
720 citations
TL;DR: P4P financial performance incentives can improve both the use and quality of maternal and child health services, and could be a useful intervention to accelerate progress towards Millennium Development Goals for maternal andChild health.
551 citations