About

Global aging is leading to a rising chronic disease burden, including in the developing world. Chronic diseases are major causes of poor health, disability and poverty as well as a major barrier to economic development in low- and middle-income countries. Understanding the full consequences of chronic diseases requires high-quality longitudinal data on chronic disease and its health and socioeconomic consequences. Healthcare interventions, in turn, may play an important role in mitigating the adverse health and socioeconomic consequences of chronic diseases and stimulating economic development in aging economies.
Preventive measures that reduce exposure to behavioral risk factors are likely to be among the most cost-effective interventions to reduce the ill-health and economic burden arising from non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
This research purposefully focuses on identifying the economic consequences of chronic health problems that have materialized and evaluate health interventions intended to stop or slow the deterioration in health as a result of such conditions. This focus makes the research relevant to the primary responsibilities of health systems in relation to NCDs – diagnosis, treatment and control.

The exact intervention used to improve healthcare access will depend on the healthcare context of each study site, and described in more detail in the country-specific research tabs above.
However, all interventions will experimentally manipulate the accessibility of healthcare services by facilitating contact with clinical care providers, and investigate the potential impact of increased accessibility of health services on the dynamic interplay between health events, healthcare use and subsequent health and socioeconomic outcomes, and the overall cost-effectiveness of increasing the accessibility of health services from a society’s point of view.
This research project is funded by the Swiss Programme for Research on Global Issues for Development, a joint initiative of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and the Swiss National Science Foundation.