Program Keluarga Harapan dan Pemanfaatan Pelayanan Kesehatan Preventif

Family hope program (PKH), a conditional cash transfers (CCT)-based program in education and health, has been launched by the Government of Indonesia since 2007 in 348 sub-districts of 48 regencies/cities in 7 provinces, but its impact on the reduction of poverty and improvement of poor human resources has not been evaluated. This study valuates initial impact of the PKH on the utilization of preventive healthcare services. This evaluation applies experimental design, a household-based intervention program with measurements prior to and after-intervention in both treatment and control groups that previously were chosen randomly at the sub-district level. The data were obtained from CCT baseline surveys 2007 and PKH follow-up survey 2008 in 6 provinces. Double-difference estimates show the impact of PKH on the increase of preventive health care services indicators such as visit to posyandu, child growth monitoring, and immunization. These findings are important for decision making to continue the program. However, as this initial evaluation has a number of limitations, this study should be interpreted with caution and be validated further by PKH survey 2009 data using different methods of analysis.