Is there an association between PEPFAR funding and improvement in national health indicators in Africa? A retrospective study

Amy H Kaji,Greg Szekeras,Roger J Lewis,Herbert C Duber,Thomas J Coates

doi:10.1186/1758-2652-13-21

Abstract

BackgroundThe US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was reauthorized in June 2008 with a three-fold increase in funds, and a broader, more explicit mandate to improve health in the low- and middle-income countries that it funded. However, the ability of a disease-specific, or vertical, programme to have a spill-over effect and improve health outcomes has been questioned. In this study, we sought to examine associations between being designated as a PEPFAR focus country (and receiving increased PEPFAR funding) and non-HIV-specific health outcomes in the World Health Organization (WHO) Africa Region, the area most affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic.MethodsA retrospective analysis of publicly available health outcomes data published by the World Health Organization was performed for all countries in the WHO Africa Region. Fractional changes in health indicators between 2000 and 2006 were calculated, and PEPFAR focus and non-focus countries were then compared.ResultsOverall, countries in the WHO Africa Region showed a small worsening in health outcomes status when all indicators were analyzed together and weighted equally. However, more health indicators improved than worsened over this six-year period. A comparison of PEPFAR focus and non-focus countries found no significant difference in the fractional change among 13 of 14 health indicators during the study period.ConclusionsThis study suggests that vertical programmes, even one that is the scale of PEPFAR, may have little or no impact on health outcomes not explicitly targeted.

Highlights

The US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was reauthorized in June 2008 with a threefold increase in funds, and a broader, more explicit mandate to improve health in the low- and middle-income countries that it funded
The purpose of this study is to assess the association between PEPFAR funding and changes in a broad range of health indicators among 46 countries in the World Health Organization (WHO) African Region
The WHO Africa Region is comprised of 46 countries, 12 of which were given PEPFAR focus country designation by the Office of the United States Global AIDS Coordinator

Summary

Introduction

The US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was reauthorized in June 2008 with a threefold increase in funds, and a broader, more explicit mandate to improve health in the low- and middle-income countries that it funded. We sought to examine associations between being designated as a PEPFAR focus country (and receiving increased PEPFAR funding) and non-HIV-specific health outcomes in the World Health Organization (WHO) Africa Region, the area most affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. As part of the global response to HIV, there has been a significant increase in funding to low- and middle-income countries to strengthen treatment, prevention and research programmes [2,3]. US$10 billion in funding was earmarked in 2008 for HIV/ AIDS in low- and middle-income countries, representing an approximate 20-fold increase from a decade ago [2].

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