This research paper examines the equity in the delivery and financing of health care for both the public and the private sectors in South Africa. Using nationally representative datasets and standard methodologies for assessing progressivity in health care financing...
Catastrophic health expenditures arising from out-of-pocket payments: Evidence from South African income and expenditure surveys
Catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) represents out-of-pocket (OOP) payments for health care which exceed a specified threshold of household’s income or household’s capacity to pay. This peer reviewed article examines CHE and the potential for such payments to...
Experiences and perceptions of barriers to health services for elderly in rural Namibia
The attainment of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) requires that no one must be left behind and that all people regardless of their social economic and demographic characteristics have access to quality healthcare. Therefore UHC means that elderly rural populations...
Social health insurance contributes to universal coverage in South Africa, but generates inequities: survey among members of a government employee insurance scheme
Many low- and middle-income countries are reforming their health financing mechanisms as part of broader strategies to achieve universal health coverage (UHC). Voluntary social health insurance, despite evidence of resulting inequities, is attractive to policy makers...
Sociodemographic patterns of health insurance coverage in Namibia
Health insurance has been found to increase healthcare utilisation and reduce catastrophic health expenditures in a number of countries which can put a country on the path towards universal health coverage. However, coverage is often unequally distributed among...
Fiscal space and financing for national health insurance in Botswana
This brief summarizes the main findings and policy implications of a Fiscal Space Analysis conducted in Botswana. The purpose of the analysis was to contribute to the policy dialogue concerning NHI in Botswana by estimating the potential revenue that could be gained...
Ageing and Health in Viet Nam
'The Longitudinal Study of Ageing and Health in Viet Nam (LSAHV) is the first multi-actor longitudinal study on ageing in Viet Nam with information collected from older Vietnamese people, their current and potential caregivers, and adult children. The 2018 baseline...
A spatial analysis of out-of-pocket payments for healthcare in Malawi
Out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditures on health remain high in many low- and middle-income countries despite policy efforts aiming to reduce these health costs by targeting their hotspots. Hotspot targeting remains inadequate, particularly where the OOP expenditures are...
Targeting the poor for UHC programme inclusion: Exploring a more effective pro-poor targeting approach in Bangladesh
Utilization of health care and burden of out-of-pocket health expenditure in Zimbabwe: Results from a national household survey
For the past decade, Zimbabwe has undertaken a number of reforms to improve health system performance and service delivery, among them include results-based financing in rural health facilities. This peer reviewed study, examines the utilization of health services and...
Exploring health insurance services in Sudan from the perspectives of insurers
A range of health insurance options including Social Health Insurance exist in Sudan. Social Health Insurance is compulsory for the formal sector, although voluntary for the informal sector and small companies (≤10 employees). Private health insurance companies...
Supporting the development of a health benefits package in Malawi
Just like most low-income and middle-income countries, Malawi has used health benefits packages (HBPs) to allocate scarce resources to key healthcare interventions with the goal of achieving universal health coverage. However, with no widely accepted method for their...
Willingness to pay for health insurance in the informal sector of Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone has a population of 6.6 million, and around 90% of the labour force in the country works in the informal sector, mostly subsistence or other small-scale agriculture. The extremely low gross domestic product per capita fuels the permanent fiscal deficit of...
COVID-19, poverty, and social safety net response in Zambia
What has the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic been on poverty in Zambia, and how can social protection programs mitigate these effects? This paper estimates the pre-pandemic poverty level in Zambia and then simulates the distributional impact of COVID-19 in the...
Hardship financing of out-of-pocket (OOP) payments in the context of free healthcare in Zambia
High levels of out-of-pocket spending have been shown to be one of the biggest health reasons people fall into poverty when accessing care, or choose to forgo care. Globally it is estimated that 100 million people are pushed into poverty every year due to exorbitant...