Current World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for severe pneumonia treatment of under-5 children recommend hospital referral. However, high treatment cost is a major barrier for communities. We compared household costs for referred cases with management by lady health workers (LHWs) using oral antibiotics. This study was nested within a cluster randomized trial in Haripur, Pakistan. Data on direct and indirect costs were collected through interviews and record reviews in the 14 intervention and 14 control clusters. The average household cost/case for a LHW managed case was $1.46 compared with $7.60 for referred cases. When the cost of antibiotics provided by the LHW program was excluded from the estimates, the cost/case came to $0.25 and $7.51 for the community managed and referred cases, respectively, a 30-fold difference. Expanding severe pneumonia treatment with oral amoxicillin to community level could significantly reduce household costs and improve access to the underprivileged population, preventing many child deaths.

child health, latent variables, MIMIC models, stock of health, unobservability, 112,

This study addressed the problems and issues facing the Qatari family in the wake of rapid socioeconomic development. The study explored housing conditions, health conditions and economic conditions of Qatari women as related to the marital status categories such as never married, married, divorced and widowed across seven administrative regions of Qatar, i.e., at the national level. The data for the study were obtained from the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics, Qatar Census Data, 2010. Macro-level data were analyzed in Excel for prominence in frequency for demographic, socio-economic, housing and health conditions across different types of marital status categories. The results of the study showed that most of the Qatari women belonged to the married or never married categories. However, the divorced and the widowed women, though in the minority, faced health issues in terms of more reported disabilities and lower housing and economic conditions as compared to other categories.

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