Benin

Testing Health Microinsurance Through Savings Groups in Benin

In Benin, CRS has been piloting a health microinsurance (HMI) product since March 2012. We have been delivering it to members of Savings and Internal Lending Communities (SILC) through NSIA (a local insurance company) and Caritas Natitingou in northern Benin. From March 2012 to December 2014, coverage has nearly doubled from 715 to more than 1,300 SILC members and their dependents. The project team recently conducted an evaluation of progress. The evaluation included 12 SILC focus groups to learn more from their experiences in using the health microinsurance product. [from introduction]

Outreach Strategies for the Promotion of HIV Testing and Care: Closing the Gap Between Health Services and Female Sex Workers in Benin

Regular voluntary counseling and testing is a key component of the fight against HIV/AIDS. In Benin, the project SIDA-1/2/3 established to decrease HIV/sexually transmitted infection (STIs) among female sex workers (FSWs), implemented a multifaceted intervention, including outreach activities. The objective of this article was to present potential advantages and limitations of 3 categories of outreach interventions designed to increase the use of testing services among FSWs in Benin. [from abstract]

Local Stakeholders’ Perceptions About the Introduction of Performance-Based Financing in Benin: A Case Study in Two Health Districts

Performance-Based Financing (PBF) has been advanced as a solution to contribute to improving the performance of health systems in developing countries. This is the case in Benin. This study aims to analyse how two PBF approaches, piloted in Benin, behave during implementation and what effects they produce, through investigating how local stakeholders perceive the introduction of PBF, how they adapt the different approaches during implementation, and the behavioural interactions induced by PBF. [from abstract]

Trends in Health Worker Performance after Implementing the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness Strategy in Benin

Training health workers to use integrated management of childhood illness (IMCI) guidelines can improve care for ill children in outpatient settings in developing countries. This article aimed to determine if the performance of IMCI-trained health workers deteriorated over 3 years. [from abstract]

Evaluating Health Worker Performance in Benin Using the Simulated Client Method with Real Children

The simulated client (SC) method for evaluating health worker performance utilizes surveyors who pose as patients to make surreptitious observations during consultations. During a trial that evaluated a quality improvement intervention in Benin, the authors conducted an SC survey with adult caretakers as surveyors and real children to evaluate the feasibility of this approach for evaluating health worker performance for pediatric illnesses. [adapted from abstract]

Task Shifting in Maternal and Newborn Care: A Non-Inferiority Study Examining Delegation of Antenatal Counseling to Lay Nurse Aides Supported by Job Aids in Benin

Shifting the role of counseling to less skilled workers may improve efficiency and coverage of health services, but evidence is needed on the impact of substitution on quality of care. This research explored the influence of delegating maternal and newborn counseling responsibilities to clinic-based lay nurse aides on the quality of counseling provided as part of a task shifting initiative to expand their role. [from abstract]

Multifaceted Intervention to Improve Health Worker Adherence to Integrated Management of Childhood Illness Guidelines in Benin

This study evaluated a nintervention to support health workers after training in integrated management of childhood illness, a strategy that can improve outcomes for children in developing countries by encouraging workers’ use of evidence-based guidelines for managing the leading causes of child mortality. [from author]

Are You Moonlighting? Using an Item Count Technique to Measure the Prevalence of Dual Job Practice in the Health Sector: A Case Study from Benin

This presentation on moonlighting in the health sector in Benin presents the results of a study which measured the extent of dual job practice in the health sector. [adapted from author]

Improving Maternal and Newborn Care Counselling in Benin: Operations Research on the Use of Job Aids and Task Shifting

This study examined whether a pictorial set of job aids could improve the quality of maternal and newborn care counseling by skilled providers and whether similar performance levels could be achieved by clinic-based lay providers as part of a task shifting initiative to expand their role. [from author]

HRH Country Profiles

The HRH country profiles serve as a tool for systematically presenting the HRH situation, policies and management. They are expected to help to monitor trends, generate regional HRH overviews, provide comparable data between countries and identify points for focused action in countries. They will also serve for a comparison of countries’ responses to similar HRH challenges.

Improving Pneumonia Case Management in Benin: a Randomized Trial of a Multi-Faceted Intervention to Support Health Worker Adherence to Integrated Management of Childhood Illness Guidelines

The Integrated Management of Childhood Illness strategy can improve the quality of care for pneumonia and other common illnesses in developing countries, but adherence to these guidelines could be improved. We evaluated an intervention in Benin to support health worker adherence to the guidelines after training, focusing on pneumonia case management. [from abstract]

Lessons Learned from the Benin HIV/AIDS Prevention Program (BHAPP)

This report evaluates the BHAPP project including an analysis of its service and communication activities for outreach and capacity strengthening of personnel in 23 health centers to diagnose and treat STIs and use STI case management as a referral point for HIV testing. It also discusses the effectiveness of the project’s policy work at the central level.

Safe Motherhood Studies: Timeliness of In-Hospital Care for Treating Obstetric Emergencies: Results from Benin, Ecuador, Jamaica, and Rwanda

This report presents data on in-hospital care for childbirth and obstetrical emergencies in 14 hospitals. This report examines intervals between critical events

Safe Motherhood Studies: Results from Benin: Competency of Skilled Birth Attendants; the Enabling Environment for Skilled Attendance at Delivery; In-Hospital Delays in Obstetric Care (Documenting the Third Delay)

Through its Safe Motherhood Research Program, the Quality Assurance Project carried out three studies to explore issues regarding competence of skilled birth attendants, the elements that contribute to an enabling environment and the causes of the delay in receiving medical attention after a woman arrives at a healthcare facility in countries with high maternal mortality ratios.

Quality of Obstetric Care Observed in 14 Hospitals in Benin, Ecuador, Jamaica and Rwanda

This report discusses care provided to 245 women during labor, delivery, and immediate postpartum and their newborns during immediate postpartum. The quality of care for different tasks (e.g., monitoring fetal heart rate) is presented by country, by hospital type, and overall. The report details performance on recommended tasks and should inform program managers and providers in finding similar weaknesses in their own care delivery systems. Report includes 21 data tables and the data collection instrument for observations. [publisher’s description]

Health Worker Motivation in Africa: the Role of Non-Financial Incentives and Human Resource Management Tools

There is a serious human resource crisis in the health sector in developing countries, particularly in Africa. One of the challenges is the low motivation of health workers. Experience and the evidence suggest that any comprehensive strategy to maximize health worker motivation in a developing country context has to involve a mix of financial and non-financial incentives. This study assesses the role of non-financial incentives for motivation in two cases, in Benin and Kenya. [abstract]