A research article published in the Health Science Reports of the Wiley online Library on the government of Iran’s efforts towards reducing catastrophic health expenditure for its population.
Abstract
One of the goals of the Islamic Republic of Iran is to reduce the prevalence of catastrophic health expenditures among Iranian households to 1% by the end of the sixth 5-year development plan (2016−2021). This study was conducted to evaluate the level of access to this goal in the final year of this program.
A national cross-sectional study was conducted on 2000 Iranian households in five provinces of Iran in 2021. Data were collected through interviews using the World Health Survey questionnaire. Data from households whose health care costs were more than 40% of their capacity to pay were included in the group of households with catastrophic health expenditure (CHE).
In the final year of the sixth 5-year development plan, Iran has not yet achieved its goal of “reducing the percentage of households exposed to CHE to 1%.” However efforts are underway and future policy will be informed by such research.