Data for Affordability of comprehensive community health worker programmes in rural sub-Saharan Africa

We combine an existing source of rural CHW programme costs with World Bank data to estimate relative CHW programme costs in 37 countries. We consider three ‘salaries’ (CHWs as volunteers, paid the local equivalent of US$80 per month and paid the national minimum wage) and four potential healthcare budgets (both actual and Abuja declaration allocations alone and increased by external funding received and potential foreign aid, respectively).

Costs are shown in 2012 nominal US$. Results With CHWs paid the local equivalent of US$80 per month and financed from existing central government healthcare budgets, the median relative cost of a CHW programme would be 27% of the healthcare budget. While less than 2.5% in five countries (Botswana, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Namibia and South Africa), this relative cost would exceed 100% in three (Chad, Eritrea and Niger).

There is a strong negative linear relationship (R2=0.83, p<0.001) between the natural logs of gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and affordability. In 23 countries with GDP per capita under US$1200, the cost of a CHW programme would exceed 12% of actual healthcare spending if CHWs were paid US$80 per month. Conclusion CHWs may be a stepping stone to universal access to professional healthcare, but there is high variability in the affordability of CHW programmes across sub-Saharan Africa.

In many countries, such programmes are not yet affordable unless significant foreign aid is received.<br><br>Data record consists of a single data file in .xls format. Collated secondary dataset used to evaluate the affordability of comprehensive CHW programmes in sub-Saharan Africa. Sources provided on the "sources" tab.