Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Mar 23;13(3):e0194677.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0194677. eCollection 2018.

The double burden of disease and the challenge of health access: Evidence from Access, Bottlenecks, Cost and Equity facility survey in Ghana

Mawuli Komla Kushitor  1 , Sandra Boatemaa  1
Affiliations

The double burden of disease and the challenge of health access: Evidence from Access, Bottlenecks, Cost and Equity facility survey in Ghana

Mawuli Komla Kushitor et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Despite the double burden of infectious and chronic non-communicable diseases in Africa, health care expenditure disproportionately favours infectious diseases. In this paper, we examine quantitatively the extent of this disproportionate access to diagnoses and treatment of diabetes, hypertension and malaria in Ghana. A total of 220 health facilities was surveyed across the country in 2011. Findings indicate that diagnoses and treatment of infectious diseases were more accessible than NCDs. In terms of treatment, 78% and 87% of health facilities had two of the recommended malaria drugs while less than 35% had essential diabetes and hypertension drugs. There is a significant unmet need for diagnoses and treatment of NCDs in Ghana. These inequities have implications for high morbidity and mortality from NCDs. We recommend the use of task shifting as a model to increase the delivery of NCD services.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: SB has completed the online competing interest form and declared no competing interest. MKK has no competing interest to declare.

References

    1. Agyei-Mensah S, de-Graft Aikins A. Epidemiological transition and the double burden of disease in Accra, Ghana. J Urban Heal Bull New York Acad Med. 2010;87: 879–897. doi: 10.1007/s11524-010-9492-y - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Institute of Health Metrics. Global burden of disease: Profile Ghana [Internet]. Washington; 2010. Available: http://vizhub.healthdata.org/gbd-compare/
    1. GBD 2016 Causes of Death Collaborators. Global, regional, and national age-sex specific mortality for 264 causes of death, 1980–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016. Lancet. 2017;390: 1980–2016. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(17)32152-9 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. WHO. Global status report on noncommunicable diseases 2014. Geneva; 2014. ISBN 9789241564854
    1. Awuah RB, Afrifa-Anane E, Agyemang C. Cardiovascular disease, diabetes and established risk factors in low- and middle-income countries In.). In: de-Graft Aikins A, Agyeman C, editors. Chronic Non-communicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries. CAB International; 2016. p. pages 1–13.

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources