Health Equity and Financial Protection: Streamlined Analysis with ADePT Software

World Bank researchers have a long tradition of developing and applying methods for the analysis of poverty and inequality, often working with collaborators. And the Bank’s researchers have often tried hard to make their methods accessible to others, through “how-to” guides and training courses.

In that tradition, this book is the first in a new series called Streamlined Analysis with ADePT Software. ADePT is an exciting new software tool developed by the Bank’s research department, the Development Research Group. ADePT automates the production of standardized tables and charts using a wide range of methods in distributional analysis, including some advanced methods that are technically demanding and not easily accessible to most potential users. This software makes these sophisticated methods accessible to analysts who have limited programming skills. (ADePT uses the statistical software package Stata but does not require that users know how to program in Stata, or even to have Stata installed on their computers.) But we also hope that ADePT will be valuable to more technically inclined researchers too, by speeding up the production of results and by increasing their reliability and comparability.

The present book provides a guide to ADePT’s two health modules: the first module covers inequality and equity in health, health care utilization, and subsidy incidence; the second, health financing and financial protection. It also provides introductions to the methods used by ADePT and a step-by-step guide to their implementation in the program.