Rural Households’ Awareness and Willingness to Pay for National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in Ilesha West Local Government Area, Osun State Nigeria: A Recursive Bivariate Probit Approach

The Nigerian health policy seeks to ensure adequate access of the population to affordable and quality healthcare services. The NHIS seeks to complement efforts already put in place for achieving this goal. This paper therefore analyzed the factors influencing awareness and willingness to pay for NHIS in rural Nigeria. The data were collected with structured questionnaires using multi-stage sampling method. Data were analyzed using Recursive Bivariate Probit model. Results show that 47.27 percent of the respondents were using general (public) hospital while 15.45 percent were not using medical treatments. Also, 54.55 percent of the households were aware of NHIS whereas 71.82 percent were willing to pay. Awareness and willingness to pay were negatively correlated although both were positively and significantly influenced by years of education and sick time (p<0.10). It was concluded that efforts to properly educate rural people can facilitate subscription into the program. [Abayomi Samuel Oyekale and Adedotun Adeyeye. Rural Households’ Awareness and Willingness to Pay for National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) in Ilesha West Local Government Area, Osun State Nigeria: A Recursive Bivariate Probit Approach. Life Sci J 2012;9(4):2086-2093] (ISSN:1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com. 312