Framing access to essential medicines in the context of Universal Health Coverage: a critical analysis of health sector strategic plans from eight countries in the WHO African region

Background Framing affects how issues are understood and portrayed. This profoundly shapes the construction of social problems and how policy options are considered. While access to essential medicines (ATM) in the World Health Organization (WHO) African Region is often framed as a societal problem, there is dominance of medical and technically oriented approaches to analyze and remedy the situation. Hence, the systematic application of social science approaches, such as framing theory, remains under-explored. Through a framing analysis of National Strategic Plans (NSPs) from eight countries, this study explores the applicability and potential usefulness of framing theory to analyze essential medicines policies. Methods We inductively coded the relevant NSP textual fragments using the qualitative content analysis software ATLAS.ti.22. Benford and Snow’s conceptualization of framing was used to organize the coded data into three frames: diagnostic (problems), prognostic (solutions) and motivational (values and ideological). Results The following five diagnostic frames were dominant or in-frame: medicine unavailability, ineffective regulation, weak supply chain management, proliferation of counterfeit (substandard or falsified) medicines and use of poor quality medicines. Diagnostic frames related to financing, affordability, efficiency and corruption were given limited coverage or out of frame. Prognostic frames corresponded with how these problems were framed. Whilst Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and its guiding principles was the dominant motivational frame, we identified some frame discordance between the global discourse and national level policies. Conclusions Social science approaches such as framing analysis are applicable and useful to systematically analyze essential medicine aspects. By applying framing theory, we revealed that ATM aspects in the eight countries we analyzed are more often characterized in relation to availability at the expense of affordability which undermines UHC. We conclude that whilst UHC is a strong motivational frame to guide ATM aspects, it is insufficient to inform a comprehensive approach to address the problems related to ATM at country level. To effectively advance ATM, concerned actors need to realize such limitation and endeavor to gain a deeper understanding of how problems are framed and agendas are set at country level, the processes through which ideas and knowledge become policies, including the political demands, incentives and trade-offs facing decision-makers in selecting policy priorities.