Working Paper No. 6 - Health Policy Project

Results
Figure 2. Distribution of total costs, per DIC service contact
Indirect Costs
60% 61%
48%
Other Direct Costs
Service Delivery
27% 27%
13% 12%
21%
31%
DIC-Counseling DIC-STI DIC HTC
The largest cost component of other direct costs was the direct costs of non-client professional staff time
working directly on the DIC programme, accounting for 51 percent of cost. The largest cost component of
indirect costs was central-level costs associated with managing the national programme, accounting for 35
percent of indirect costs per service contact.
Sensitivity analysis on unit costs
The study team conducted a sensitivity analysis on unit costs estimates to determine how changes in
service delivery over time could affect costs in three scenarios of programme scale-up:
• 25% increase in service delivery contacts in the next 12 months
• 50% increase in service delivery contacts in the next 12 months
• 100% increase in service delivery contacts in the next 12 months
Figures 3 and 4 provide projections of how unit costs per outreach and DIC service contacts,
respectively, are estimated to change in the three scale-up scenarios presented above. The unit cost per
outreach service contact is estimated to decline by between 31 and 45 percent in
scenarios where service delivery doubles in the next year. The decline in unit cost per service
contact of outreach events is more pronounced than that of mobile VCT services because of the higher
ratio of indirect versus direct costs for outreach contacts when compared to mobile VCT contacts.
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