Contingent Valuation and Health Sector Reform in Developing Countries: the Palestinian Case

This Thesis aims to help establish a complementary funding mechanism for health services in the context of the current socioeconomic crisis in the emerging Palestinian State. It focuses on the design of an efficient and equitable cost-recovery mechanism for primary health care services, based on the value of improving the quality of care from the patients¿ perspective. The study makes use of the contingent valuation method to assess the value, for the patients, of improving the quality of care, by eliciting patients¿ willingness to pay values for different quality improvements. A contingent valuation questionnaire was designed based on a decomposed valuation scenario and the payment card elicitation technique, with user-based financial contributions at the point of consumption being the payment vehicle. The elicited values were used to inform decision-makers about the highest extra user fee patients would be willing to pay to benefit from specified improvements in the quality of care.