Governments need reliable information on the price, availability and affordability of medicines to develop sound medicine pricing policies and to evaluate the impact of policy implementation. To help researchers collect this information in their countries, Health Action International offers a free standardised methodology.

The methodology pulls together and analyses data on medicine prices for both patient out-of-pocket expenses and government procurement prices across sectors and country regions. It also assesses medicine availability, affordability and price components, such as taxes and mark-ups.

Measuring Medicine Prices, Availability, Affordability and Price Components (2^nd Edition)

by Health Action International and World Health Organization (2008)

The WHO/HAI medicine price, availability and affordability survey methodology can be downloaded for free below.

Download Complete Manual

Electronic Workbooks

Part 1: Prices, availability and affordability – This workbook is currently being updated to a new version of excel and will again be available for download as soon as possible.

Part 2: Price components – This workbook is currently being updated to a new version of excel and will again be available for download as soon as possible.

Download Manual by Sections

Table of Contents, Abbreviations, Foreword and Acknowledgements

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Survey Overview and Pre-survey Planning
Supporting materials:

• Questionnaire on structures and processes of country pharmaceutical situation, Annex 1
• Example of a letter of endorsement, Annex 2
  (EN | RU | FR and ES available in Annexes below)

Chapter 3: Preparation

• Survey protocol template (EN)
• Using the WHO/HAI medicine price methodology to survey a therapeutic group of medicines (EN | ES | RU)

Chapter 4: Training Area Supervisors, Data Collectors and Data Entry

• Introduction to the survey and training workshop (EN | ES | RU)
• Overview of the survey methodology (EN | ES | RU)
• Data collection procedures (EN | ES | RU)
• Completing the data collection form (EN | ES | RU)
• Data entry (EN| ES | RU)
• Data quality and checking (EN | ES | RU)

Handouts

• Instructions for area supervisors (EN | FR | ES | RU)
• Instructions for data collectors (EN | FR | ES | RU)
• Instructions for completing the Medicine Price Data Collection Form (EN | FR | ES | RU)

Chapter 5: Preparing for Data Collection in the Field

• Letter of introduction from survey manager, Annex 4 (EN | RU | FR and ES available in Annexes below)

Chapter 6: Data Collection in the Field

Chapter 7: Data Entry

Chapter 8: Data Analysis and Interpretation

Chapter 9: Measuring Price Components

• Price components interview guide, Annex 6 (EN | RU | FR and ES available in Annexes below)
• Price components data collection form, Annex 7 (EN | RU | FR and ES available in Annexes below)

Chapter 10: International Comparisons

Chapter 11: Exploring Possible Policy Options and Lines of Action

Chapter 12: Reporting

Chapter 13: Using the Evidence and Getting the Messages Out

Chapter 14: Monitoring Medicine Prices and Availability

Chapter 15: Next Steps in the WHO/HAI Project on Medicine Prices

Annexes

1. Questionnaire on structures and processes of country pharmaceutical situations
2. Example of a letter of endorsement
3. Trainer’s guide for training area supervisors, data collectors and data entry personnel
4. Example of a letter of introduction from the survey manager
5. Checklist for manual check of survey data
6. Price components interview guide
7. Price components data collection form

Glossary

Updates to Manual and Workbooks (EN)