Financial incentive schemes in public health: Evidence from Sierra Leone

This brief explores findings from a field study of a community health
programme in Sierra Leone seeking to understand how financial
incentives can impact public service and public health outcomes.

•  Sharing incentives equally between Community Health Workers
  (CHW) and their supervisors generates an increase in household
  health visits that is 61% larger than the impact achieved when
  offering the incentive either exclusively to the worker or to the
  supervisor.
• The shared incentives scheme also translates into better access to
  pre- and post-natal care and lower disease incidence.
• This policy brief highlights the conditions needed for shared
  incentives to be the optimal incentive structure for an organisation
  and provides insights for policy.