The Asia Health Policy Program at Stanford invited Professor Andreas Landmann (Principal Investigator of our research team) to give a talk on “Information Barriers to Social Health Protection in Pakistan” at Stanford University. A teaser can be found here. The talk took place on April, 20th 2023 and was streamed as a webinar.
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DEval grant awarded to team members for rigorous evaluation of OPD scheme
Prof. Landmann and Prof. Helmsmüller from Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg have been awarded funding by the German Institute for Development Evaluation (Deutsches Evaluierungsinstitut der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit – DEval) and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). In the project called Impact evaluation of the OPD health insurance in Northern Pakistan, they will conduct a rigorous quantitative measurement of the effects of outpatient health insurance. The funding period runs from March 1, 2023 until September 30, 2025.
German team in Pakistan and preparation of wave 3 of the population panel
Research meetings and training in Islamabad
For two weeks, the population panel team met in Pakistan for intense sessions on preparing an upcoming telephonic data collection as well as refining and piloting further survey tools. Dr. Lisa Rogge and Alina Imping travelled on the 12th of February and were joined in Islamabad by the Khyber Medical University (KMU) colleagues for most of the time. One main purpose of travel was to prepare the third wave of data collection of the population panel. The 3rd wave comprises a telephonic survey entailing re-interviewing the panel households approximately a year after the last in-person interview. The main interest is to evaluate the current health needs, health care utilization and health care expenditure, especially Outpatient Department (OPD) care visits not forgetting neglected health care visits.
Continue readingVisit of the Pakistani researchers to Germany
Part I – Erlangen
After multiple visit of the German team to Pakistan, the German team members have finally had the opportunity to host the Pakistani team for a two week stay in Germany. In the evening of October 17th, seven members of Khyber Medical University (KMU) arrived in Erlangen to be greeted by the FAU team. During the Kick-Off session the next morning, the consortium finalized the details of the agenda for the coming weeks. The mornings and afternoons were used for working group meetings as well as plenary sessions, during which the teams gave feedback to each other’s progress and discussed open questions. The atmosphere was marked by team spirit and motivation, and solid advancements were made in moving forward the research.
Continue readingProvider panel: First wave of data collection
Analyzing what the health service readiness gaps in the pool of potentially eligible health facilities and providers for the outpatient scheme are and how the introduction of insurance coverage for outpatient services affects health service delivery is a fundamental aspect of the research project on the SHPI Phase II and the main research activity of the provider panel working group. In specific, the provider panel group assesses the quality of service delivery and its changes following the introduction of the insurance scheme and monitors provider management capacity, health workers behavior, and patients experience and satisfaction.
Continue readingLong-term follow-up: Preparation of the data collection
As part of the research project on the SHPI, the long-term follow-up working group examines the development of out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditures for inpatient care services (IPD) under SHPI Phase I since 2017. We are happy to see that Vendula Stepanikova, a member of the FAU team based in Germany, had the opportunity to travel to Peshawar between the 4th and the 14th of September and to make significant progress on the research design of the working group.
Continue readingDissemination of the needs assessment for the OPD insurance scheme
During their recent stay in Pakistan, the research consortium invited all key stakeholders of the SHPI Phase 2 project to a dissemination workshop that was held in Peshawar on June 1st. This was a great opportunity for the research team members to present the first major deliverable of their research: the needs assessment for the OPD insurance scheme.
Continue readingSecond visit of the German SHPI research team members to Pakistan
After their first visit to Pakistan in November 2021, seven research team members from Friedrich-Alexander-University (FAU) and the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health (HIGH) returned to Pakistan between May 17th and June 10th, 2022. Their goal was to meet the research consortium members of Khyber Medical University (KMU) as well as the key stakeholders of SHPI Phase 2, and hold a dissemination workshop to present the findings of the first wave of data collection. The trip allowed the research team to make relevant progress on the research.
Continue readingPopulation panel: Phone survey on children & adolescents health completed
Following the first wave of in-person data collection which finished in March, the population panel group successfully implemented a quick follow-up phone survey on health care of children and adolescents. The data collection took place between April 15th and April 29th via phone with the professional support of I.C.U. Healthcare and represents the first phone survey conducted by the research consortium for the SHPI Phase 2.
Continue readingQualitative panel: Data collection for needs assessment completed
Assessing health needs of future beneficiaries is an important aspect of INSPIRE Pakistan and the first major research activity. The qualitative working group planned to conduct, in each of the selected districts (Chitral, Malakand, Mardan, and Kohat), at least four focus group discussions (FGDs) with the community and three in-depth interviews (IDIs) with the doctors, to assess the status of met and unmet health needs of the poor population in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
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