Interest Groups and Health Facility Regulation – Future Directions for Health Policy and Systems Research; Comment on “What Lies Behind Successful Regulation? A Qualitative Evaluation of Pilot Implementation of Kenya’s Health Facility Inspection Reforms”

Document Type : Commentary

Authors

1 School of Population and Public Health, School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

2 The George Institute for Global Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia

3 The George Institute for Global Health India, New Delhi, India

Abstract

In their paper, Tama and colleagues observe that one key challenge in a pilot, multi-component intervention to strengthen health facility regulation was the reaction from health facility owners and providers to regulatory processes. In this commentary, we propose that future research and action on health facility regulation in low- and middleincome countries (LMICs) contexts adopt an explicit focus on addressing the role of interests and interest groups in health systems ‘hardware’ and ‘software.’ Research on policy processes in LMICs consist of fewer investigations into the political economy of national or sub-national interest groups, such as physician associations or associations of health facility owners. A growing body of literature explores supply-side and demand-side interest groups, power relations within and between these stakeholders, and their advocacy approaches within LMIC health sector policy processes. We posit that such analyses will also help identify facilitators and challenges to implementation and scaleup of similar reforms to health facility regulation.

Keywords

References

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History

  • Receive Date: 21 November 2022
  • Revise Date: 17 March 2023
  • Accept Date: 18 March 2023
  • First Publish Date: 19 March 2023

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