ArticleHealth policy and planning2020
The effects of medicines availability and stock-outs on household's utilization of healthcare services in Dodoma region, Tanzania.
Article in Health policy and planning, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 72 citations in OpenAlex.
- Preferences of women for maternal healthcare services in low-income and middle-income countries: a systematic review of discrete choice experiments.BMJ global health · 2025Pooled it
- Wings of access: a cluster RCT on drone-based medical commodity delivery in remote Madagascar.BMJ global health · 2026Trial
- Availability of essential medicines in conflict-affected african regions: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Conflict and health · 2026Review
- Feasibility of mainstreaming schistosomiasis and soil transmitted helminthiasis mass drug administration into primary healthcare: a baseline survey for a community case study in Western Kenya.BMC health services research · 2026Article
- Preferences of Women for Maternal Health Services in Sidama Region, Ethiopia: Discrete Choice Experiment.Applied health economics and health policy · 2026Article
- Factors affecting availability of HIV viral load/early infant diagnosis point of care testing commodities and performance of testing platforms in public health facilities in Masaka region, Uganda.BMC infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Healthcare providers perspectives on opportunities and challenges for adopting comprehensive primary healthcare-seeking behaviour in selected districts in Tanzania.Journal of public health in Africa · 2026Article
- Assessing primary health care facilities in six prioritized Nigerian states: Linking facility readiness with service availability.PloS one · 2026Article
- Access to essential medicines and vaccines among hard-to-reach populations in Tanzania: evidence from a cross-sectional study of artisanal miners, fisherfolk, and pastoralists.Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice · 2026Article
- Observational
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- Health facility revisit and its associated factors among clients utilizing public health facilities in Zanzibar: a retrospective cohort study.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Service delivery factors associated with enrollment to the improved community health fund among household members: a cross-sectional study in the Manyara region, Tanzania.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Magnitude and determinants of anemia in the third trimester among pregnant women in Dodoma: An analytical cross-sectional study.Medicine · 2025Observational
- Assessing maternal and newborn health readiness: Insights from a service availability assessment in five provinces in Laos.PloS one · 2025Article
- Determinants of availability of tracer essential commodities in Kitui County Referral Hospital, Kenya: a cross-sectional mixed-methods study.The Pan African medical journal · 2025Article
- Costs of testing sick children in primary care with pulse oximetry: Evidence from four countries, both with and without electronic clinical decision support.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Key stakeholders' views on the causes of medicine stock-outs in Mauritania: A qualitative study.PloS one · 2025Article
- Patient's willingness to pay for improved community health insurance in Tanzania.Health policy OPEN · 2024Article
- The role of perceived quality of care on outpatient visits to health centers in two rural districts of northeast Ethiopia: a community-based, cross-sectional study.BMC health services research · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Low- and middle-income countries have been undertaking health finance reforms to address shortages of medicines. However, data are lacking on how medicine availability and stock-outs influence access to health services in Tanzania. The current study assesses the effects of medicine availability and stock-outs on healthcare utilization in Dodoma region, Tanzania. We conducted a cross-sectional study that combined information from households and healthcare facility surveys. A total of 4 hospitals and 89 public primary health facilities were surveyed. The facility surveys included observation, record review over a 3-month period prior to survey date, and interviews with key staff. In addition, 1237 households within the health facility catchment areas were interviewed. Data from the facility survey were linked with data from the household survey. Descriptive analysis and multivariate logistic regressions models were used to assess the effects of medicine availability and stock-outs on utilization patterns and to identify additional household-level factors associated with health service utilization. Eighteen medicines were selected as 'tracers' to assess availability more generally, and these were continuously available in ∼70% of the time in facilities across all districts over 3 months of review. The main analysis showed that household's healthcare utilization was positively and significantly associated with continuous availability of all essential medicines for the surveyed facilities [odds ratio (OR) 3.49, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.02-12.04; P = 0.047]. Healthcare utilization was positively associated with household membership in the community health insurance funds (OR 1.97, 95% CI 1.23-3.17; P = 0.005) and exposure to healthcare education (OR 2.75, 95% CI 1.84-4.08; P = 0.000). These results highlight the importance of medicine availability in promoting access to health services in low-income settings. Effective planning and medicine supply management from national to health facility level is an important component of quality health services.
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