ERF 26th Annual Conference
Accreditation as a Quality-Improving Policy Tool: Family Planning, Maternal Health, and Child Health in Egypt
No.
ERF26_208
Publisher
ERF
Date
July, 2020
Topic
I. Health, Education, and Welfare
Accreditation of healthcare providers has been established in many high income countries and some low- and middle-income countries as a tool to improve the quality of health care. However, the available evidence on the effectiveness of this approach is limited and of questionable quality, especially in low- and middle-income countries. In light of the interventions introduced under Egypt’s Health Sector Reform Program between 2000 and 2014, we estimate the effect of health facility accreditation on family planning, maternal health, and child health outcomes using difference-in-differences fixed-effects and propensity score matching difference-in-differences models. To do so, we spatially link women to their nearest mapped health facilities using their Global Positioning System coordinates. We find that accreditation had multiple positive effects, especially on delivery care and child morbidity prevalence. The positive effects of accreditation appear to weaken over time though. Our findings suggest that facility accreditation can be effective in improving family planning, antenatal care, delivery care, and child health, but demand the study into how the positive effects can be sustained.
Research Associates
Amira El-Shal
Acting Associate Director of Research, J-PAL MENA
Authors
Patricia Cubi-Molla
Office of Health Economics, United Kingdom
Authors
Mireia Jofre-Bonet
Professor of Economics, City, University of London,...