Health Benets of Roadside Healthcare Services

Providing long distance truck drivers with adequate access to prevention, testing, and treatment services for HIV, Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), Tuberculosis (TB), and Malaria is suggested to be an extremely effective way to reduce the burden and the spread of these diseases. However, truck drivers need to overcome large barriers in order to obtain these services at the traditional healthcare system. To reduce these barriers, several NGOs locate healthcare facilities along the major African trucking routes. Scientific research on the impact of these facilities in terms of health outcomes is lacking. This paper investigates this issue in two steps. First, we analyze how roadside healthcare services can diminish the barriers truck drivers face to access (effective) healthcare. Next, we review scientific literature to investigate the possible health outcomes of diminishing these barriers. Our findings suggest that roadside healthcare services can have a significant health impact by decreasing treatment delay, improving treatment adherence, and decreasing disease transmission.