A INVESTIGAÇÃO DO IHMT SOBRE OS PRESTADORES PRIVADOS DE SAÚDE NOS PALOP: LIÇÕES APRENDIDAS E QUE FUTURAS ÁREAS DE INVESTIGAÇÃO?

Abstract

Despite the growing importance assigned to private health providers in low- and middle-income count ries, lit t le evidence exists in the field, especially for portuguese-speaking african count ries (PALOPs). The present paper presents the work developed by the Instituto de Higiene e Medicina Tropical (IHMT), aiming at informing the debate on private health care providers and identifying future areas of research. The most relevant papers published in high-impact journals by IHMT researchers on the private health sector in the PALOPs in the last three decades were ident ified through a review of the literature and personal communicat ions. T hese publicat ions focus on physicians’ engagement in private formal and informal sector in Africa, on the public and private pharmaceut ical sector in Mozambique and on health professionals’ dual employment in t he PALOP s. The paper concludes that the IHMT research in this area has, on one hand, cont ributed to document the reality on the field and the experiences of t he PALOP s’ health systems and, on the other hand, it has shed light on characterist ics and roles played by public and private health inst itut ions in low-income count ries, enriching the debate on the definit ion of health markets in such count ries. Building up on the work developed so far, IHMT ’s fut ure research may furt her explore the role of those physicians working exclusively in the private sector in Africa, as well as the type of incent ives needed to at tract physicians back into the public sector, and on the role and influence of health inst itut ions on the definit ion of physician dual pract ice as well.