Developing a locally-appropriate socioeconomic support package for TB-affected households in Nepal: a seed project to inform the END-TB trial

WHO’s End Tuberculosis (TB) Strategy advocates socioeconomic support for households affected by TB to improve control of the disease. My doctoral research trialled a socioeconomic intervention for TB in 32 towns in Peru. This included education, mutual support and cash for TB-affected households, and this reduced catastrophic TB-related costs and increased initiation of preventive therapy and treatment success. The next step is to replicate this research in diverse, low-income, countries.

Supported by researchers at the Birat Nepal Medical Trust and the infrastructure of the IMPACT TB study, I will evaluate the socioeconomic impact of TB with in-depth interviews during house visits to 200 TB-affected households in Nepal. I will also conduct a workshop with 30 stakeholders from different sectors in Nepal to create a shortlist of feasible and locally-appropriate socioeconomic interventions to mitigate the effects of TB.

I will publish two articles and make presentations to international policy makers including WHO Future studies. I will link the findings with data from partner countries in the Social Protection Action Research and Knowledge Sharing (SPARKS) network including Peru and Mozambique, to inform the design of my randomised controlled trial of socioeconomic support for vulnerable TB-affected households.