02 Oct PLOS ONE published an article by G Gomez
Improving maternal care through a state-wide health insurance program: a cost and cost-effectiveness study in rural Nigeria.
The Nigerian government has made progress towards the Millennium Development Goals but further investments are needed to achieve the targets of post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals, including Universal Health Coverage. AIGHD researcher Gabriela Gomez and her colleagues have published an article in PLOS ONE about a decision analytic model they developed to estimate the costs and cost-effectiveness of maternal care accessible through the Kwara State Health Insurance (KSHI). They simulated a cohort of pregnant women in the KSHI (KSHI scenario) and compared it to the current standard of care for maternal care. The KSHI scenario resulted in a health benefit to patients at a higher cost compared to the base case of standard of care. Although the cost was higher, the mean incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was US$46.4 per disability-adjusted life year averted. This means that the intervention is a cost-effective one. This finding is robust to uncertainty in parameter estimates, during one-way sensitivity analyses, and when changes were made in the parameters for the base case for cost, quality, and utilization. However, the authors conclude that further investments in healthcare by the government are essential for this cost-effective programme to be scaled up and sustained.