Experiments in African Healthcare

Guest: Dan Posner, PhD, Professor of International Development, UCLA About 10 years ago, a study of health clinics in Uganda caused a big stir in the global development world. The researchers claimed that without spending any additional money on supplies or staff, they were able to cause dramatic – really dramatic – improvement in health outcomes. All they did was organize meetings between the health clinic workers and residents of the rural communities where they operated. So basically, people talked and held each other to account and maternal health improved, babies lived longer – the list goes on.  Development experts were thrilled at the possibilities. And governments in developing countries were excited, too, because if they could get much better health outcomes without spending any extra money – well that’s brilliant, right?