Theme: Social Science and Policy Research Year: 2021
Background: The World Health Organization (WHO) in 2016 committed to eliminating hepatitis C by 2030, highlighting people who inject drugs (PWID) as a priority population. To reach the elimination goals there is need for policies to address hepatitis C in PWID. The aim of this study was to identify the policy and implementation gap from a patient group perspective. Methods: We surveyed 20 member organisations (one per country) of the European Liver Patients Association (ELPA). The survey was distributed in October of 2018 and asked about the implementation of eight policies in place. Once the data were collected, they were coded as 0 (no policy), 1 (policy in place but not implemented), and 2 (policy implemented). We then applied a multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) to generate similarity scores based on the responses. We standardized the results to range from 0-10 (best) and included fictitious reference countries (ElimiNation, ProcrastiNation, and StagNation) to contextualize results. Results: All 20 participants responded to all questions. The MCA found that there were two dimensions that explained 44%, and 35% of the variation in the dataset for a total of 79% of the variation explained (figure). The first similarity score (y-axis) indicates the total number of policies that were in place. The second similarity score (x-axis) is about the implementation of policies in place. Spain was the only country that had all policies in place and implemented. Poland had the lowest implementation level for the policies and Bosnia Herzegovina was the lowest ranked country for policies in place. Conclusion: We found that major gaps exist in having policies and their actual implementation. If the countries in the study are to meet the WHO elimination targets, there is a need for all countries to have all relevant policies and for better implementation of policies in practice. Disclosure of interest: AP, SRS, MJR, MM, and AM report no conflicts of interests. GC reports personal fees from Gilead, personal fees from MSD, all outside the submitted work. SJH reports personal fees from Gilead, all outside the submitted work. JVL reports grants, personal fees and other from AbbVie, Gilead Sciences, and MSD, and personal fees from CEPHEID, Intercept, and Janssen MSD, outside the submitted work.
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