objective: to understand the knowledge and services of informal providers and to explore their role in addressing the human resource gap in uttar pradesh, india, within the context of maternal health. materials and methods: the study is exploratory in nature, conducted in four blocks of four districts of uttar pradesh state, india. semi-structured interviews were conducted with 114 informal pro...

background informal payments for health care, which are common in many countries, can have negative effects on health care access, equity and health status as they lead people to forgo or delay seeking care, or to sell assets to pay for care. many countries are putting reforms in place with the aim of reducing informal payments. in order to be successful, such policies should be informed by the...

Background: Informal payments can cause delayed access to health care services, forcing people to sell their properties for cost of treatment; and as a result, they lose trust in the health system. Considering the importance of this issue, this study was conducted in 2016 to identify solutions to reduce and eliminate informal payments in Iran’s health system.    Methods: Initia...

One of the consequences of ineffective governments is that they leave space for unlicensed and unregulated informal providers without formal training to deliver a large proportion of health services. Without institutions that facilitate appropriate health care transactions, patients tend to navigate health care markets from one inappropriate provider to another, receiving sub-optimal care, befo...

Background Informal payments for health care, which are common in many countries, can have negative effects on health care access, equity and health status as they lead people to forgo or delay seeking care, or to sell assets to pay for care. Many countries are putting reforms in place with the aim of reducing informal payments. In order to be successful, such policies should be informed by the...

BACKGROUND End-of-life care is a complex service. The education of health care providers, patients nearing end of life, and informal caregivers plays a vital role in increasing knowledge about the care options available. This review looks at whether education helps improve outcomes for patients nearing the end of life and for their informal caregivers. OBJECTIVES To systematically review and ...

In the Horn and East Africa, social protection providers fall into two main categories: informal and formal. Informal providers are communities and external social networks such as family members, relatives and other social structures outside pastoral systems. Strong informal social protection networks based on religious, clan or family affiliations have always played a vital role in pastoral c...

Background The government of Ghana introduced the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in 2004 with the goal of achieving universal coverage within 5 years. Evidence, however, shows that expanding NHIS coverage and especially retaining members have remained a challenge. A multilevel perspective was employed as a conceptual framework and methodological tool to examine why enrolment and retent...

BACKGROUND A range of formal and informal close-to-community (CTC) health service providers operate in an increasingly urbanized Bangladesh. Informal CTC health service providers play a key role in Bangladesh's pluralistic health system, yet the reasons for their popularity and their interactions with formal providers and the community are poorly understood. This paper aims to understand the fa...