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Increasing demand for priority health services
Health Partners International (HPI) has been involved in a wide range of health service initiatives that have focused on demand issues. Known as 'demand-side' interventions, these have been developed in response to less successful approaches that primarily focused on improving the supply of services.
We, at HPI, have been involved in increasing demand for priority health services in several countries, including Malawi, Nigeria, India and Bangladesh.
Some of our projects
- Review of good practice in increasing access to safe motherhood services - Nigeria
- Social development support to hospital reform - Malawi
- Review of community-based blind and low-vision rehabilitation - Bangladesh
- Social development support for national TB programme - Orissa, India
- Increasing access strategy for safe motherhood services - Nigeria
- Options for expanding safe motherhood emergency transport scheme - Nigeria
Background information
Demand-side intervention recognises that despite the dissemination of health information via mass communications and community-based means, there are still obstacles preventing people's utilisation of services. These include:
- barriers to physical access
- issues of affordability
- specific socio-cultural factors, such as local beliefs about the cause of disease
- gender-related constraints.
Furthermore, interventions that are based on assumptions about need or on experience elsewhere usually fail. There is a need to investigate the way people use services and devise appropriate strategies that work in specific local contexts, but this takes time.
Piloting of interventions, and careful monitoring and evaluation, are therefore essential, as are careful planning and management.
One of the major challenges in this area is that technical capacity, finances and human resourcing to address demand-side issues in health are often scarce. Partnerships with, for example, non-government organisations, are essential, as is building a government's capacity to work successfully with contracted partners.
Strengthening the capacity of organisations to effectively plan and budget for health promotion activities also helps to support this work.