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Political Incentives for Health Improvements: Governance, the GOBI initiative, and the Child Survival Revolution

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Researchers

Beatriz Magaloni
Investigator
Grant Miller
Investigator
Paul H. Wise
Investigator
Investigator

In partnership with the Center for Health Policy (CHPPCOR) at Stanford, this research initiative brings together medical doctors, health economists, and political scientists seeking to understand infant mortality declines in the post-War Era. The research initiative develops new measures of political incentives for population health improvement embedded in finely grained political institutions. The aim is to quantitatively assess the political incentives motivating governments (both democratic and non-democratic) to embrace UNICEF's GOBI (Growth Monitoring, Oral Re-hydration, Breastfeeding and Immunization) initiative and the child survival revolution.

The team has built an extensive data set from Demographic and Health Surveys covering more than 60 countries, which they will analyze to identify the political incentives that motivate governments-both democratic and authoritarian-to improve maternal and infant health outcomes. The first stage of this research was presented at an April 2010 conference, "Better Governance for Better Health," which brought together leading experts committed to improving health in developing countries.