Adolescent mental, sexual and reproductive health and wellbeing policy, program and primary care implementation priorities in West Africa
Medical Research Council
Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons
The principal research question of this study is: "what and why are adolescent wellbeing policy and program priorities in countries in West Africa, what mental, sexual and reproductive health services are available at primary health care level for adolescent health and wellbeing; are they proven effective, what and why are the mechanisms by which these services are funded and how efficiently are available resources used to deliver these services". The study design is a multi-country case study in West Africa with the case is defined as: "Country level adolescent mental, sexual and reproductive health and wellbeing policy and implementation priorities, financing, technical and allocative efficiency of primary health care service provision". The three countries purposively selected for this study to reflect the anglophone francophone language divide in the sub-region as well as stable and more fragile contexts are Niger, Burkina Faso and Ghana. Specific groups to be studied will be adolescents (in and out of school) and their families and communities, national and sub-national level policy makers and frontline health workers. Within each country one region and two rural and two urban districts within the region will be selected for the sub-national level study. In each district four sub-district level primary care facilities will be randomly selected along with their surrounding communities. The conceptual framework of the study draws on several policy analysis and econometric frameworks including Leichter's scheme for analyzing context and the political economy framework of 4 I's (interests, institutions, ideas and ideology). Methods of data collection and analysis include desk review, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, participant and non participant observation, conversations, resource mapping, revenue and expenditure records analysis and Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) or Stochastic frontier analysis (SFA).
8.1 Organisation and delivery of services / Research Grant