Informal health care providers in Nigerian slums: perspectives on how to link them with the formal health system.

ABSTRACT: Informal healthcare providers (IHPs) play a crucial role in healthcare delivery in urban slums, but the lack of linkages between IHPs and the formal healthcare system results in fragmented, low-quality care. Integrating IHPs into the formal healthcare system poses challenges that are common across such settings. This study explores the perceptions of healthcare providers and consumers in Nigerian urban slums regarding linking IHPs to the formal healthcare system, while also aiming to identify stakeholder perceptions on how the linkage might best work. Using cross-sectional consumer and provider surveys, we collected data via questionnaires from 1024 households and 255 providers, purposively selected from eight urban slums in Anambra and Enugu states, southeast Nigeria. We estimated overall

SUBMITTER: Ojiakor I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12605824 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature