Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH
Volume 14, Issue 9, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph14091007
Keywords
complexity; performance-based financing; LMIC; Uganda; systems thinking; theory-driven evaluation; health systems; methodology; causal loop diagramming
Funding
- Flemish Interuniversity Council (VLIR) [VLADOC2014PR008]
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Increased attention on complexity in health systems evaluation has resulted in many different methodological responses. Theory-driven evaluations and systems thinking are two such responses that aim for better understanding of the mechanisms underlying given outcomes. Here, we studied the implementation of a performance-based financing intervention by the Belgian Technical Cooperation in Western Uganda to illustrate a methodological strategy of combining these two approaches. We utilized a systems dynamics tool called causal loop diagramming (CLD) to generate hypotheses feeding into a theory-driven evaluation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 30 health workers from two districts (Kasese and Kyenjojo) and with 16 key informants. After CLD, we identified three relevant hypotheses: success to the successful, growth and underinvestment, and supervision conundrum. The first hypothesis leads to increasing improvements in performance, as better performance leads to more incentives, which in turn leads to better performance. The latter two hypotheses point to potential bottlenecks. Thus, the proposed methodological strategy was a useful tool for identifying hypotheses that can inform a theory-driven evaluation. The hypotheses are represented in a comprehensible way while highlighting the underlying assumptions, and are more easily falsifiable than hypotheses identified without using CLD.
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