What works in global health? 25 lessons from VoxDev

Although global life expectancy has increased substantially in recent decades, large regional disparities remain, and progress in achieving universal health coverage across the world has actually slowed in the last decade. This is especially concerning in developing countries, where people are at higher risk of contracting both infectious and non-infectious diseases, posing a ‘double burden’ on already vulnerable healthcare systems.

In these settings, public healthcare is often characterised by low access and quality, leading to high out-of-pocket costs. Evidence on VoxDev shows that low-cost interventions can have a large impact on closing gaps in access to care. From simple behavioural interventions to larger policy reform, research reveals the role practitioners, policymakers, and private sector must play to protect health systems.

In this blog, I have compiled examples of innovations in healthcare management and technology, health insurance and subsidies, health policy, and vaccine and drug distribution. I also review interventions relating to mental health, menstrual health, and early child development, as well as suggest further resources for those interested in learning more about global health.

Healthcare management and technology

1. In Brazil, outsourcing the management of public hospitals to private operators increased hospital productivity without harming quality, expanding access, and reducing mortality. However, these gains depended critically on the managerial capacity of the organisations in charge (Coube, Fontes, and Rocha 2026).
2. In Chile, merit-based recruitment and higher pay attracted better-trained managers in public hospitals, leading to lower mortality rates and improved healthcare performance (Muñoz and Otero 2025).
3. In El Salvador, the introduction of community health teams led to better organised care, with more prevention, less infectious disease, and fewer patients ending up in hospital for conditions that should never have progressed that far (Bancalari, Bernal, Celhay, Martinez, and Sánchez 2026).
4. In Rwanda, telemedicine outperformed in-person care, delivering faster, higher-quality, and lower-cost care for common conditions (Wellsjo, Gertler, Kwan, Remera, Irakiza, Condo, and Humuza 2025).
5. In Malawi, the implementation of an electronic medical records (EMR) system in HIV clinics helped clinic staff trace lapsed patients and manage larger patient volumes, saving thousands of lives by improving efficiency (Derksen, McGahan, and Pongeluppe 2025).

Health insurance and subsidies

6. In India, pairing subsidised family planning services with a ‘bring-a-friend’ voucher changed who accompanies them, reduced stigma, and delivered meaningful gains in contraceptive use (Anukriti, Herrera-Almanza, and Karra 2026).
7. In Mali, providing free medical care for the most common childhood illnesses induced substantial increases in necessary care-seeking (Sautmann and Dean 2025).
8. In Burkina Faso, bundling health insurance with microcredit reduced out-of-pocket health expenses by 50% among informal workers, without decreasing microcredit uptake (Boutin, Petitfour, Allard, Kountoubré, and Ridde 2025). 
9. In China, a government-endorsed supplemental insurance scheme expanded coverage for hundreds of millions of people, but also crowded out private insurance purchases (Ding, Wang, and Xu 2026).

Health policy

10. In India, expanding paid maternity leave from 12 to 26 weeks led employers to cut women’s employment by up to 10% and favour men for promotions, while leaving wages unchanged. Although women greatly valued longer leaves, better-designed alternatives – such as shorter durations or insurance mechanisms spread across all workers – could capture most of the benefits while reducing harm to women (Ghosh, Hao, Ho, Sharma, and Tandon 2025).
11. However, in Chile, extending maternity leave from 12 to 24 weeks increased mothers' formal employment for up to three years after childbirth, with no negative medium-term effects (Rojas-Ampuero 2026).
12. In Rwanda, during COVID-19, the government licensed and supported textile manufacturers to produce high-quality masks, successfully reducing mask prices, increasing mask uptake, and slowing the spread of the pandemic (Byrne, Kondylis, Loeser, and Mukama 2026).

Vaccine and drug distribution

13. In Burkina Faso, a 1984 mass child vaccination campaign not only improved child survival, but also led to meaningful gains in school attainment, formal sector employment, and even agricultural productivity decades later (Daramola, Hossain, Kazianga, and Nchare 2024).
14. Geographic patent pools promote licensing and distribution of life-saving drugs in developing countries (Galasso and Schankerman 2024).
15. Since 1999, Gavi has distributed more than $16 billion in vaccine support to low- and middle-income countries. This has increased coverage and saved around 1.5 million lives over 20 years (Shastry and Tortorice 2025).

Mental health

16. In Ghana, providing low-income adults with small, regular mobile communication credits significantly reduced mental distress and domestic violence during COVID-19 (Annan and Archibong 2023).
17. In Côte d’Ivoire, a three-day training programme to improve hairdressers’ active listening skills did not improve women’s mental health, but did change women’s perception of mental health, leading them to associate it more with disease and less with being ‘crazy’ (Nilsson and Pougué Biyong 2025).
18. In Nepal, face-to-face counselling for adolescents improved mental well-being; however, these gains did not translate into schooling outcomes (Edmonds, Mukherjee, Prakash, Prakash, and Sabarwal 2025).
19. In Uganda, a group therapy programme for adolescent girls only reduced depression in the short-term (Parisotto, Baird, Özler, Dell’Aira, and Us-Salam 2025).

Menstrual health

20. In India, a government-led, state-wide programme providing free sanitary pads in schools significantly reduced dropout rates among adolescent girls, primarily by increasing school attendance (Agarwal, Chia, and Ghosh 2024).
21. In Bangladesh, engaging women in open conversations about menstruation reduced the social barriers to health technology adoption, increasing access to welfare-improving menstrual products (Au-Young, Castro, and Schlenk 2023).
22. In Madagascar, a hygiene- and menstruation-focused, school-based intervention boosted learning, while also reducing stress and improving the psychosocial climate of schools (Vera Rueda, Macours, and Webb 2024).

Early child development

23. In Ghana, a three-minute video intervention prompted mothers to talk more to infants and boosted early language, at just $0.45 per child at scale (Dupas, Falézan, Jayachandran, and Walsh 2025).
24. Similarly, in Uruguay, a phone-based intervention, which included access to an AI chatbot, enhanced parenting practices and improved early child development at scale (Bloomfield, Balsa, Cid, and Oreopoulos 2025).
25. However, in India, an intervention using automated phone calls to explain basic concepts of child rearing, suggest parent-child activities, and offer advice had no effect on child-rearing practices (Arteaga, de Barros, and Ganimian 2025).

More on global health

Interested in learning more about global health? Check out these recent episodes of VoxDevTalks that provide excellent overviews on key topics: 

• Adriana Lleras-Muney on the complex relationship between poverty and health, bidirectional and context-dependent by nature, making it difficult to address through policy than it may appear.
• Manisha Shah on the causes and consequences of intimate partner violence in low- and middle-income countries, and how policy might respond.
• Zachary Wagner and Manisha Shah on interventions to reduce bias among healthcare providers in developing countries.
• Silvia Castro and Kristina Czura on menstrual hygiene access and management in developing countries.

In developing countries, the combination of climate change, poverty, and drug resistance are creating an escalating health crisis that could become potentially 'catastrophic' if left unaddressed; this not only reinforces the need for intervention, but also calls for further research. While I plan to update this blog periodicially, in the meantime, please use our new AI search to navigate new content on global health. And make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for announcements on upcoming health-related VoxDevLits.