This article, published in BMC Health Services Research, aims to measure changes in inequality in access to maternal and child health (MCH) interventions and the effect of primary health care (PHC) facilities expansion on the inequality in access to care in Ethiopia. The authors utilize Demographic and Health Survey datasets from Ethiopia (2005 and 2011) to calculate changes in utilization of MCH interventions and child morbidity and estimate concentration and horizontal inequity indices. The findings suggest that expansion of PHC facilities in Ethiopia might have an important role in narrowing the urban-rural and rich-poor gaps observed in health service utilization for selected MCH interventions.
This article, published in the Lancet Global Health, aims to evaluate the health and financial risk protection benefits of selected interventions that could be publicly financed by the government of Ethiopia. The authors used an extended cost-effectiveness analysis (ECEA) to assess the health gains (deaths averted) and financial risk protection afforded (cases of poverty averted) by a bundle of nine interventions that the Government of Ethiopia aims to make universally available. This approach incorporates financial risk protection into the economic evaluation of health interventions and therefore provides information about the efficiency of attainment of both major objectives of a health system: improved health and financial risk protection. It is especially relevant for the design and sequencing of universal health coverage to meet the needs of poor populations.