What are the effects of social franchising on health service access and quality in low- and middle-income countries?

Social franchising adapts ideas and approaches developed and used in commercial franchising to the provision of public health services. While commercial franchising is driven by profit generation, social franchising strives to achieve social benefits. Social franchising has been identified as a way of increasing access to health services rapidly, particularly amongst the poorest populations, while maintaining quality standards in low- and middle-income countries. In such settings, access to health services is currently inadequate and private health service providers play an important role. Effective overviews and quality standard enforcements of social franchising are often lacking.

Key messages

• No evidence was found regarding the effects of social fran-chising on access to, and the quality of, health services in low- and middle-income countries
• There is a need for well designed experimental studies that are informed by the theoretical and empirical literature