PhD Completion Seminar - Herfina Nababan

Regulation by Competition and Health-Seeking Behavior for Women's and Children's Health Services Among Informal Providers in Bangladesh

ABSTRACT
Although Bangladesh has achieved significant progress in health in the past decades, excess morbidity and mortality persists. Informal providers are widespread; they remain the primary source of care for many Bangladeshi, despite an inadequate knowledge base to provide care that meets the minimum quality standard of modern health service. Profit-making orientation often prompts them to deliver unnecessary or even harmful care. On the other hand, the public health sector is perceived to be of low quality, hindering people from using this formal sector.
A suitable policy response to address the challenges posed by informal providers is hypothesized to involve the provision of effectively subsidized public health services that users can recognize as being of adequate quality, a process called regulation by competition. Indeed, evidence demonstrates that a key determinant of acceptable and sustained use of health service is the users’ own views on the quality of services.
This PhD research aimed to test the regulation by competition hypothesis in Bangladesh for a range of women's and children's health services, to inform the country's ongoing effort to achieve health for all.

SUPERVISORS
Prof. Barbara Mcpake
Dr. Alison Morgan

HERFINA (FINA) NABABAN is a PhD candidate with Nossal Institute for Global Health. She completed her medical training from Indonesia and holds a master in International Health from the University of Tokyo, Japan. Before joining the Nossal Institute, she worked with the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) in the Center for Equity and Health System. She is interested in health system and service research, especially in the role of the private sector for health.

DATE    Tuesday, 10 December 2019
TIME     11.30 am – 12.30 pm
VENUE  Arole Conference Room
Nossal Institute for Global Health
Level 5, 333 Exhibition Street
Melbourne CBD
ALL WELCOME