Stock-out severity index: tool for evaluating inequity in drug stock-outs

Biplab Bhattacharya (), Li Lin (), Rajan Batta () and Pavani K. Ram ()
Additional contact information
Biplab Bhattacharya: University at Buffalo, State University of New York
Li Lin: University at Buffalo, State University of New York
Rajan Batta: University at Buffalo, State University of New York
Pavani K. Ram: University at Buffalo, State University of New York

Central European Journal of Operations Research, 2020, vol. 28, issue 4, No 4, 1243-1263

Abstract: Abstract The United Nations (UN) urged acceleration efforts to tackle inequity through its Sustainable Development Goals set in 2015. The need for focusing on equity has been highlighted in the field of public health for improved health outcomes. Drug stock-outs at the last mile is a complex challenge that hinders the efforts of equitable pharmaceutical access and availability. Severity experienced due to drug stock-outs are not equal among a group of mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive populations. This paper proposes the stock-out severity index (SSI) to measure severity due to availability of drugs or lack thereof by incorporating risk factors and determinants of health from a combination of data sources. The spread of inequity among these groups of populations can be measured using the mean absolute deviation or the GINI coefficient on the SSI assigned to each population group. The paper demonstrates how the SSI can help define priority levels of varying population groups, rather than making decisions solely from an equality perspective that assumes uniformity across populations. It also demonstrates the impact on rearranging the priorities when the SSI is used. The paper presents guidelines for incorporating and implementing the SSI.

Keywords: Health inequity; Drug stock-outs; Pharmaceutical supply chain; Inequity; Last mile (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10100-019-00634-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:cejnor:v:28:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1007_s10100-019-00634-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... search/journal/10100

DOI: 10.1007/s10100-019-00634-z

Access Statistics for this article

Central European Journal of Operations Research is currently edited by Ulrike Leopold-Wildburger

More articles in Central European Journal of Operations Research from Springer, Slovak Society for Operations Research, Hungarian Operational Research Society, Czech Society for Operations Research, Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR), Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research, Croatian Operational Research Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().