142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition

Annual Meeting Recordings are now available for purchase

315915
Improving health service coverage through change in health system structure: The Experience of Ethiopia

142nd APHA Annual Meeting and Exposition (November 15 - November 19, 2014): http://www.apha.org/events-and-meetings/annual
Tuesday, November 18, 2014 : 2:30 PM - 2:50 PM

Mengistu Asnake, MD, MPH , Pathfinder International, World Federation of Public Health Associations, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
The Ethiopia health care system was following a centralized management and a long tier health care delivery system prior to the early 1990’s. With this system health services were mostly accessible to the urban and peri-urban population and the rural majority and the underserved were inaccessible. Following the 1993 health policy of a decentralized health management and a better health care delivery tier system, access to health services has improved a lot for the rural majority and the overall national health service coverage has increased significantly. Specifically with the introduction of a community based health care delivery system using health extension workers has shown a  dramatic change in most maternal and child health indicators. These advances are owed largely to government efforts with substantial support from the development partners. Although impressive progress has been made in access to health services, there is still work to be done in improving the quality of services and sustaining the gains achieved.

Learning Areas:

Planning of health education strategies, interventions, and programs
Provision of health care to the public
Public health or related research

Learning Objectives:
Describe the health system change to respond to underserved population in Ethiopia List progress made in health service coverage through change in the health system

Keyword(s): Health Systems Transformation, Underserved Populations

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been managing public health programs within the government sector and international NGOs in Ethiopia over the past 25 years that are directly related to the different system changes which happened in the past few decades and managing them in different positions.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.