NPS Provider Choice Tanzania

The dataset integrates four rounds of the Tanzania National Panel Survey (2008/09, 2010/11, 2012/13, and 2014/15) into a harmonized Uniform Panel Dataset (UPD) with 65,954 outpatient episodes reported by households between 2008 and 2015. Each record represents a healthcare visit within a four-week recall period, detailing facility type, cost, perceived quality, and socio-economic attributes. The data, collected by the National Bureau of Statistics in collaboration with the World Bank LSMS–ISA program, are nationally representative of Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar. The study tests the hypothesis that healthcare provider choice in Tanzania is jointly determined by household resource allocation decisions and provider strategies shaped by fiscal and infrastructural constraints. Patients allocate scarce resources—money, time, and trust—between public and non-public providers, while providers adjust prices, quality, and capacity in response to demand and regulation. Using this dataset, a fixed-effects control function panel logit model estimates causal demand responses, which are then embedded in a dynamic Bayesian game framework to capture provider behaviour. The dataset contains variables on facility characteristics (ownership, distance, waiting time), costs (consultation, medication, transport), quality perceptions (satisfaction, drug availability, cleanliness), and household factors (income, education, insurance status, residence). Data were harmonized and cleaned to ensure consistency and representativeness across four survey waves, resulting in observations from 3,152 households across all administrative regions. This dataset is valuable for analyzing healthcare demand, equity, and provider competition in Tanzania and other LMICs. It can support econometric and game-theoretic modeling, policy simulations, and evaluation of health financing reforms. All variables are coded for standard software (Stata, R, Python) and accompanied by a detailed codebook. The data are ethically compliant and publicly available through the Tanzania NPS (LSMS–ISA).