Financial Incentives, Targeting, and Utilization of Child Health Services: Experimental Evidence from Zambia

To address untreated infections in children, routine health checkups have increasingly been incentivized as part of conditional cash transfer programs targeted at the poor. We conducted a field experiment in Zambia to assess the elasticity of demand for checkups as well as the associated health bene...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Health economics 2017-10, Vol.26 (10), p.1307-1321
Main Authors: Fink, Günther, Rockers, Peter C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agriculture
Antipoverty programs
Child
child health
Child Health Services - utilization
Children
Childrens health
Developing Countries
Elasticity of demand
Farming
Female
Financial incentives
Global health
Health economics
Health services
Health services utilization
Households
Human capital
Humans
Incentives
Income - statistics & numerical data
Infection - drug therapy
Male
Monetary incentives
Motivation
Patient Acceptance of Health Care - statistics & numerical data
Physical examinations
Rural Population
Socioeconomic factors
Transportation
Uptake
utilization of health services
Wealth
Zambia
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Summary:To address untreated infections in children, routine health checkups have increasingly been incentivized as part of conditional cash transfer programs targeted at the poor. We conducted a field experiment in Zambia to assess the elasticity of demand for checkups as well as the associated health benefits. We find that relatively small incentives induce substantial increases in uptake among non‐farming households and households living farther away from clinics, but not among households in the top wealth quintile. These results suggest that small financial incentives may be an efficient way to target poor populations. However, given the weak socioeconomic gradient in infections observed, small incentives will miss a substantial fraction of exposed children. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
ISSN:1057-9230
1099-1050
DOI:10.1002/hec.3404