Is Equity Being Sacrificed? The Effect of User Fees on the Willingness and ability to pay for Schistosomiasis Control in the Lake Victoria Region of Tanzania
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Jesse M. Rohde
This study asks: In an effort to finance schistosomiasis prevention and treatment activities, have countries such as Tanzania lost sight of those most in need? With the new policy of user-fee charges in place, is effective treatment still a priority for those in heavily endemic regions? The impact of charges on health-seeking behavior is crucial to disease control in Tanzania. The decentralization of the country's healthcare system has led to an increase in the need for income generation at all operational levels. In general, people have accepted the costs of curative services. However, the impact of user-fee charges on health-seeking behavior has yet to be assessed. This is a crosssectional study of willingness and ability to pay for schistosomiasis control. Questionnaires were administered to household heads of six representative fishing and farming communities in the Lake Victoria Region of Tanzania, East Africa. A total of 103 questionnaires were analyzed. The yearly mean household expenditure on schistosomiasis diagnosis and treatment was 7,000Ts ± 60,000Ts (US$1 = 1,000Ts), accounting for 1.54% of the total yearly household income. Most household heads (85 [83%]) thought schistosomiasis was the greatest health threat in their communities, but only 27 (26%) of them were willing to pay for screening, diagnosis, and treatment of the infection. On the other hand, 72 (70%) were willing to do volunteer work in exchange for schistosomiasis control. Exposure and livelihood cannot be separated; the future of disease control in this endemic region of Tanzania is about access, not prevention.
The American Osteopathic Association
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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Articles in the same Issue
- LETTERS
- Final Notes From the Chief of Staff
- CORRECTIONS
- Correction
- ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS
- Effects of Osteopathic Manipulative Treatment on Pediatric Patients With Asthma: A Randomized Controlled Trial
- CLINICAL PRACTICE
- Patient-Physician Communication: Why and How
- STUDENT CONTRIBUTIONS
- Student Involvement in Research
- Tendon Gene Therapy Modulates the Local Repair Environment in the Shoulder
- A Theoretical Study of Polarization Effects on a Model Peptide Bond
- Assessment of Patient Flow in Routine Office Visits: Perspectives on Minimizing Patient Visiting Time
- Hysteresis as a Measure of Ankle Dysfunction
- Prion: Gene, Structure, and Species Barrier
- Outpatient Prescribing Practices for Nonapproved Drugs in Children
- Is Equity Being Sacrificed? The Effect of User Fees on the Willingness and ability to pay for Schistosomiasis Control in the Lake Victoria Region of Tanzania
- A Pilot Study Examining the Effects of Neuromuscular Therapy on Patients With Parkinson's Disease
- Metabolic Syndrome and Postoperative Complications in Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgical and Percutaneous Interventions
- Blood Glucose Correlations With Depression, Body Habitus and Caregiving Status in the Elderly Kenyan Luo Grandparents
- VOLUME 104 INDEX
- Author Index
- CME QUIZ
- CME Quiz
