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Who Serves the Poor? An Equity Analysis of Public and Private Providers of Family Planning and Child Health Services in Kenya
January 2019
Application of the EquityTool, and evidence that both social franchises and private providers matter in family planning service provision.
SUMMARY: In order to provide affordable, high-quality care to all, we need to understand the wealth status of patients. This study is the first of its kind to compare the wealth status of patients seeking care at 4 different types of health facilities. It assess differences among clients of family planning and child health services in Kenya attending public, faith-based, private for profit, and social franchise facilities. It also describes clients’ reasons for facility choice, the cost of services, and the proportion of additional clients of these services. Client wealth was assessed using M4M’s EquityTool.
FINDINGS: There were significant differences in the client wealth distribution between facility types. Public sector facilities served a significantly higher proportion of poor clients than other types of facilities. Results show that social franchises do better at reaching the poor than earlier studies have indicated, though not as well as faith-based and public facilities. Findings suggest that private providers remain important within the larger health system, more so for family planning than childhood illness management.
