HPM student publication explores use of incentives in mass drug administration campaign

May 8, 2014

Philip Downs

Philip Downs, doctoral student in health policy and management at the Gillings School and research scientist at RTI International, in Washington, D.C., is lead author of an article published April 29 in the journal, Trends in Parasitology. 

The article describes the use of incentives given to volunteer distributors of drugs to prevent neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)  such as dengue, sleeping sickness, guinea-worm disease, river blindness and others.

NTD programs rely on volunteers to distribute preventive drugs in school and community settings, and those volunteers frequently are given monetary and non-monetary incentives to take part in that work. The impact of the incentives on program performance, however, is not well documented.

Downs’ work provides a descriptive framework for understanding the dynamics of incentives in the context of mass drug administration campaigns and to guide future research in the area.

His co-authors, Lauren Bardin and Deborah McFarland, are at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.