Estimating National and Area-Specific COVID-19 Effects on Health Service Use in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Using information available through routine health information systems (RHIS), Data for Impact (D4I) assessed the effects of COVID-19 on health service use in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) twelve months into the pandemic. The study examined national and area-specific usage patterns for selected basic health services, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. We used data from the pre-pandemic period to develop models to replicate the trajectories of total and average health service utilization, as well as the number of facilities reporting such services, over time. These models were then used to estimate what health service utilization would have been in the absence of COVID-19 during the first full year of the pandemic (from March 2020 to March 2021). This brief shares more.