Does the increase in foreign investments in HIV/AIDS interventions reduce out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) on health care in Africa?

Does the increase in foreign investments in HIV/AIDS interventions reduce out-of-pocket expenditure (OOPE) on health care in Africa?

Current policy proposals about moving away from HIV/AIDS-specific funding towards responding to HIV/AIDS within a broader health system are taking place alongside policy proposals about abolishing OOPE as a source for financing health care. This implies however, a policy dilemma in the context of Africa for two reasons. First, the possibility that the response to HIV/AIDS within a broader health system is likely to a decrease in investments specific
to HIV/AIDS interventions, which in turn is likely to cause an increase in OOPE on health care. Second, increasing the
use of OOPE on health care is fundamentally in opposition to the international policy agenda of moving towards universal health coverage. To avoid the dilemma in policymaking, estimates of the relationships between foreign
investments in HIV/AIDS interventions and OOPE, articularly in Africa, are needed to advise policy makers. To this end, this paper uses static and dynamic fixed-effect regression models on data collected over the period 2000-2012 to determine whether foreign investments in HIV/AIDS interventions in Africa have increased or decreased OOPE on
health care. The results indicate that these investments have decreased OOPE on health care. Therefore, to be consistent with other international policy goals such as moving towards universal health care coverage, policies that
target the response to HIV/AIDS and that contribute to the reduction of the need to use OOPE should be maintained.

File reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher/author.