ReviewBMJ global health2018
40 years after Alma-Ata, is building new hospitals in low-income and lower-middle-income countries beneficial?
Review in BMJ global health, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- What affects the performance of hospital financing interventions in low and lower-middle income countries from the program design and implementation perspective? A scoping review.Health policy and planning · 2025Article
- Reassessing the Alma-Ata Declaration: A Scoping Review of Its Impact on Global Surgery.Plastic and reconstructive surgery. Global open · 2025Article
- Strengthening hospital infrastructure in a war context: the case of the Mopti regional hospital.Globalization and health · 2025Article
- Barriers and opportunities related to access to oncology care in Benin: a qualitative study on breast cancer.BMC cancer · 2025Article
- Inequalities in geographical access to emergency obstetric and newborn care.Bulletin of the World Health Organization · 2024Article
- First referral hospitals in low- and middle-income countries: the need for a renewed focus.Health policy and planning · 2024Review
- Travel of pregnant women in emergency situations to hospital and maternal mortality in Lagos, Nigeria: a retrospective cohort study.BMJ global health · 2022Article
- The impediments of implementing infection prevention control in public hospitals: Nurses' perspectives.Health SA = SA Gesondheid · 2022Article
- Universal health coverage: the roof has been leaking for far too long.BMJ global health · 2021Article
- Does the implementation of UHC reforms foster greater equality in health spending? Evidence from a benefit incidence analysis in Burkina Faso.BMJ global health · 2021Article
- Learning from public health and hospital resilience to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: protocol for a multiple case study (Brazil, Canada, China, France, Japan, and Mali).Health research policy and systems · 2021Article
- Current realities versus theoretical optima: quantifying efficiency and sociospatial equity of travel time to hospitals in low-income and middle-income countries.BMJ global health · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Public hospitals in low-income and lower-middle-income countries face acute material and financial constraints, and there is a trend towards building new hospitals to contend with growing population health needs. Three cases of new hospital construction are used to explore issues in relation to their funding, maintenance and sustainability. While hospitals are recognised as a key component of healthcare systems, their role, organisation, funding and other aspects have been largely neglected in health policies and debates since the Alma Ata Declaration. Building new hospitals is politically more attractive for both national decision-makers and donors because they symbolise progress, better services and nation-building. To avoid the 'white elephant' syndrome, the deepening of within-country socioeconomic and geographical inequalities (especially urban-rural), and the exacerbation of hospital-centrism, there is an urgent need to investigate in greater depth how these hospitals are integrated into health systems and to discuss their long-term economic, social and environmental sustainability.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.