Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #112671

Rachel Racelis¹, Susna R. De, MSc, MPH², and Natasha Hsi, MPH². (1) c/o Lillian Kidane, World Health Organization, 4800 Montgomery Lane Suite 600, Bethesda, MD 20814, (2) Abt Associates Inc., 4800 Montgomery Lane, Suite 600, Bethesda, MD 20814, 3017183151, natasha_hsi@abtassoc.com

Given the sizeable burden of malaria in the world, policymakers in countries of high prevalence are increasingly committed to stemming the spread of the disease. This necessitates proper allocation of resources to various disease interventions and prevention programs. An important prerequisite for such health sector planning is an understanding of the organization and financing for malaria health care services as a whole. Such information is also valuable to monitoring large influxes of donor funds, such as malaria grants issued by the Global Fund.

One tool that can assist policymakers to better understand the flows of funds for services that target a particular disease is the National Health Accounts (NHA) subanalysis. NHA is an internationally accepted approach used by over 70 developing countries to examine overall health expenditures within a health system. A subanalysis of NHA repeats the same exercise but does so within a defined set of health care services, such as for malaria control and treatment.

This paper will present findings from NHA malaria subanalysis in Rwanda. Findings from the Rwanda NHA estimations have shown that donor spending on malaria, has been poor. Approximately, 33 percent is targeted for HIV/AIDS care, another one-third for reproductive health care, leaving less than 30 percent for any other health care activity, including malaria. Such findings have armed malaria programmers with evidence to argue that in comparison to other priority services, malaria donor funding is quite low, despite the fact that the disease is currently the number one cause of morbidity and mortality in the country.

Learning Objectives:

• Identify the proportion of national health expenditures on malaria.
• Describe the importance of disease-specific expenditure analysis to policy makers

Keywords: Reproductive Health, Financing

Related Web page: www.phrplus.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.