ArticlePloS one2014
Is health aid reaching the poor? Analysis of household data from aid recipient countries.
Article in PloS one, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The impact of official development assistance for health on health outcomes: a rapid systematic review.Health policy and planning · 2026Pooled it
- Long-term drought and risk of infant mortality in Africa: A cross-sectional study.PLoS medicine · 2025Article
- The economic efficiency of aid targeting.World development · 2022Article
- Associations between long-term drought and diarrhea among children under five in low- and middle-income countries.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Taking the health aid debate to the subnational level: the impact and allocation of foreign health aid in Malawi.BMJ global health · 2017Article
- Establishing a faith-based organisation nursing school within a national primary health care programme in rural Tanzania: an auto-ethnographic case study.Global health action · 2016Article
- Changes in child mortality over time across the wealth gradient in less-developed countries.Pediatrics · 2014Article
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
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Abstract
objectiveTo determine the extent to which the narrowing of child mortality across wealth gradients has been related to foreign aid to the health sector in low- and middle-income countries.
methodsMortality and wealth data on 989,901 under-5 children from 957,674 households in 49 aid recipient countries in Africa, Asia, South America, and the Caribbean between 1993 and 2012 were used in the analysis. Declines in under-5 mortality in the four poorest wealth quantiles were compared to the decline among the wealthiest at varying levels of health aid per capita using fixed effects multivariable regression models and controlling for maternal education, urbanization, and domestic spending on health among recipient countries.
resultsEach additional dollar in total health aid per capita was associated with 5.7 fewer deaths per 10,000 child-years among children in the poorest relative to the wealthiest households (p<0.001). This was also true when measured in percent declines (1.90% faster decline in under-5 mortality among the poorest compared with the wealthiest with each dollar in total health aid, p = 0.008). The association was stronger when using health aid specifically for malaria than total health aid, 12.60% faster decline among the poorest compared with the wealthiest with each dollar in malaria aid, p = 0.001.
conclusionsForeign aid to the health sector is preferentially related to reductions in under-5 mortality among the poorest compared with the wealthiest. Health aid addressing malaria, which imposes a disproportionate burden among the poor, may explain the observed effect.
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