Uptake of health services among truck drivers in South Africa: analysis of routine data from nine roadside wellness centres

Long distance truck drivers, due to their occupational circumstances, can be susceptible to worse health outcomes compared to the general population [1‐6]. Research shows that truck drivers bear a disproportionate burden of both communicable (HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STI), tuberculosis (TB)) and non-communicable (chronic, mental, respiratory, cardiovascular, muscular) diseases [5, 7‐13]. In particular, it is their potential contribution to the HIV epidemic [14‐18] that has prompted countries and donors to support healthcare services specifically catering for this population [13]. As a result, existing healthcare programmes for truck drivers have introduced or re-oriented their services to HIV prevention and antiretroviral treatment, with a few programmes providing a broader variety of services. However, little is known about patterns of healthcare utilisation among truck drivers and whether this focus on HIV/AIDS is appropriate to client demand or whether other services should be provided, with these specialised programmes encouraged to expand their service provision.

An example of healthcare programmes for truck drivers is North Star Alliance, a non-governmental organisation providing healthcare to mobile populations and communities along transport corridors and at border crossings through a network of Roadside Wellness Centres (RWCs) across sub-Saharan Africa [19]. These RWCs are adapted shipping containers staffed with trained clinical and outreach teams. North Star Alliance provides a comprehensive menu of services, covering primary healthcare (PHC), HIV prevention and screening for a variety of infectious diseases (STI, TB, malaria…). With the exception of antiretroviral therapy (ART) services, the North Star Alliance RWCs in South Africa do not make use of paper-based client files; instead they are supported by a networked electronic data administration system called COMETS. This system was designed to facilitate the capture of clinical information, allowing clients to access their health records at every clinic within the network along transport corridors. In this study, we aim to describe healthcare utilisation among truck drivers across South Africa, using routinely collected data obtained by the COMETS system as well as to characterise clinic attendees to inform future service planning and development.

We extracted information for 36,405 records. After excluding duplicate records (n = 675) and incomplete records (n = 1493), we had 34,237 records. Of these, almost half (49%, 16,784/34,237) were records from truck drivers’ visits. After excluding truck drivers aged above 65 years, we observed 13,252 individual truck drivers who made 16,688 visits (an average of 1.26 visits/person) and accessed 17,885 services (an average of 1.07 services/visit and 1.35 services/person) across nine clinics during the 2 year reporting period (Fig. 1).

To our knowledge, this is the first report of comprehensive health service utilisation among truck drivers in South Africa. Our main results show that truck drivers attending RWCs are mainly middle-aged and in stable relationships. While HIV services are important to truck drivers from other countries, PHC services are most in demand among South African truck drivers. It could be argued that North Star Alliance’s comprehensive service package suits the majority of South African clinic attendees and that further development of PHC services might be an important consideration for future healthcare planning in South Africa.

As anticipated, as the number of RWCs increased over time, the absolute number of clients accessing services increased. However, changes in service delivery such as increased efforts to promote the clinics through outreach, the introduction of ART services for HIV-positive clients, and the increase in scope of the PHC services offered are likely to have contributed to increasing service uptake. The same yearly patterns of utilisation overall were mirrored across service type, i.e. peaks during the second quarter of the year and troughs in the last quarter. This pattern of utilisation is in keeping with trends seen among other service providers in the South African public healthcare system. The last quarter decreases are usually attributed to companies slowing down work as the year end approaches and closing for holidays.

STI prevalence in the truck driver population has been estimated to be higher than in the general population [22]. Our results showed that STI service utilisation in this mobile population was low. However, this might be related to the profile of clinic attendees (i.e. older and in stable partnerships) who might be at lower risk.

The low malaria service utilisation could be explained by South Africa’s low malaria prevalence [23] and resulting low risk perception. While HIV services were second highest in demand, the TB and HIV combination remained extremely low (less than 1%). Although the entry point for services cannot be determined from the database, it is apparent that there is an opportunity to improve provider-initiated testing and counselling [24] services and to promote screening for multiple diseases in a single visit, such as TB screening for HIV clients and vice versa but also in combination with non-communicable disease screening.

Lastly, we observe different patterns of utilisation, both in volume and type of services, depending on location. Although the Bloemfontein clinic was one of the last clinics to become operational, it had the highest number of people accessing the clinic because it is located on a busy national route and offers the most potential for service utilisation and uptake. The absence of RWCs in Western and Eastern Cape does not allow us to comment on truck driver healthcare utilisation in those provinces. However, based on the arrangement of the South African trucking corridor, the Bloemfontein RWC could be used as a proxy for utilisation trends. From the geographical size and infrastructure perspectives, we expect that truck driver utilisation would be much higher in the Western Cape as compared to the Eastern Cape.

Our characterisation of clinic attendees indicates that the cross-border mobile population was mostly likely to access services for communicable diseases, such as malaria and HIV services, whereas South African drivers were most likely to access PHC services. This could imply that transiting truck drivers may feel more comfortable accessing communicable disease services outside their home country while on the road, with North Star Alliance possibly filling a gap in service provision for this population. Programmatically this begs the question of whether non-South Africans access services in this way to avoid stigma, discrimination, and unnecessary disclosure in their home countries – especially in the case of positive results for HIV and STIs. However, linkage to care and treatment for them remains a challenge.

North Star Alliance also provides services to local communities both in Zambia and Zimbabwe. However, routinely collected data from other countries show that patients in South Africa tend to come to North Star Alliance services more regularly than in the other countries. There is a similar pattern of utilization by truck drivers both by country and over time. In South Africa, truck drivers tend to attend PHC services and these visits have increased over the two-year period. In Zambia, truck drivers mostly access HIV-related services while in Zimbabwe, they access both PHC and HIV-related services. The numbers of services accessed have remained stable in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Albeit the variable data quality across countries utilisation is more likely to be attributed to the overall healthcare services, facilities and general infrastructure available to the general populations in Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Formally contextualising and generalising findings from this study to the African trucker population is limited by the dearth of available comprehensive truck driver healthcare utilisation data; possibly linked to services offered to them (the emphasis on sexually transmitted diseases in truck drivers has influenced health programming for truck drivers to focus on HIV (behaviour change communication, outreach, condom distribution and testing) and STIs) and programmes’ general lack of recording and reporting [13]. However a Nigerian survey reported that commercial truck drivers in the age range 30–39 years were most likely to use HIV services [25], where we found no significance in our study. Moreover, a survey conducted in the US among long distance truck drivers similarly found that the middle aged, married truck drivers had the most interest in PHC related services and less interest in STIs; dissimilarly finding that HIV was the second least of interest [5]. Accessing healthcare is in part related to availability and this availability is related to a country’s evidenced or perceived burden of diseases. From the observations mentioned above it stands to reason that high burdened HIV countries will have a strong HIV response and healthcare utilisation will be favoured towards HIV services. However, it is crucial to note that lack of reporting hinders the development of appropriate country responses which ultimately influences patterns of utilisation, uptake and health outcomes not only in truck drivers but in all populations (priority and general).

This study presents some limitations. Firstly, with routinely collected information only, there is the possibility that utilisation is actually higher than that reported and misreporting is possible. However, when paper records were also available, data quality checks were performed periodically as part of quality assurance programmes for external funders. Secondly, the data describe healthcare utilisation among attendees of North Star Alliance’s RWCs and thus exclude both truck drivers who require health services but have not been accessing them at all and those accessing services from providers other than RWCs. Nevertheless, our results highlight the need for programme planners to consider the following vital aspects when designing healthcare packages for this priority population. Firstly, given that truck drivers mostly access services for non-communicable diseases, the lack of provider-initiated testing and counselling illustrates an important missed opportunity. Comprehensive care service delivery packages and training for staff to deliver them in these settings will increase the quality and impact of services available to truck drivers, which in turn might increase service demand. Attracting more truck drivers into the clinics provides further opportunities for healthcare providers to offer screening, testing, and/or management of other communicable diseases. This comprehensive care and its increased use will simultaneously generate a healthier truck driver population, with subsequent economic benefits, and will address diseases that are public health priorities.

This utilisation analysis shows that tailored services do assist in alleviating healthcare access challenges faced by truck drivers. It is however important to ensure that service packages and clinics speak to the needs of truck drivers in terms of services offered and clinic location. A comprehensive package of care will tackle both communicable and non-communicable disease burdens and provide South Africa with a healthier truck driver workforce.