The medical competence of health care providers in sub-Saharan Africa: Evidence from 16 127 providers across 11 countries

Abstract

Abstract Despite a consensus that quality of care is critically deficient in low-income countries, few nationally representative studies provide comparable measures of quality of care across countries. To address this gap, we used nationally representative data from in-person administrations of clinical vignettes to measure the competence of 16 127 health care providers across 11 sub-Saharan African countries. Rather than large variations across countries, we found that 81% of the variation in competence is within countries and the characteristics of health care providers do not explain most of this variation. Professional qualifications—including cadre and education—are only weakly associated with competence: across our sample, one-third of nurses are more competent than the average doctor in the same country and one-quarter of doctors are less competent than the average nurse. Finally, while younger cohorts do tend to be more competent, perhaps reflecting improvements in medical education, it would take 25 decades of turnover to improve care by 10 percentage points, on average, if we were to rely on such improvements alone. These patterns necessitate a fundamentally different approach to health care human resource management, calling into question typical staffing policies based on qualifications and seniority rather than directly measured quality.