BACKGROUND The present study aimed to examine the impact of socioeconomic, demographic, and health status-related factors on out-of-pocket expenditure on health care for children. METHODS Data were obtained from a birth cohort study conducted in the city of Pelotas, state of Rio Grande do Sul (RS), southern Brazil, in 2004. The final sample is a result of adjusts made in order to keep in the ...

BACKGROUND Out-of-pocket payments in health care have been shown to impose significant burden on households in Sub-Saharan Africa, leading to constrained access to health care and impoverishment. In an effort to reduce the financial burden imposed on households by user fees, some countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have abolished user fees in the health sector. Zambia is one of few countries in Sub...

Cross-sectional health expenditure data are used to compare health expenditure aggregates and the contribution of the public and private sectors in a selection of 31 low, middle and high income countries. The comparative data illustrate the diversity of outcomes in terms of total health expenditure and its components even amongst countries with similar GDP per capita. Low and middle income coun...

Background: In all countries, health expenditures are a main part of government expenditure, and governments try to find policies and strategies to reduce this expenditure. Overall expenditure index has been raised 30 times during the past 20 years in Iran, while in the health sector, the growth in health expenditures index has been 71 times. The present study aimed at examining health care exp...

Out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure on health care has significant implications for poverty in many developing countries. This paper aims to assess the differential impact of OOP expenditure and its components, such as expenditure on inpatient care, outpatient care and on drugs, across different income quintiles, between developed and less developed regions in India. It also attempts to measure pov...

Designing and implementing a health financing policy for universal coverage is relatively simple in principle but complex in practice. This issue of the Bulletin explores how it can be done, drawing lessons from several country experiences. Equity of access to health services of all types is key to universal coverage policy. High levels of out-of-pocket payments, including user fees, are still ...

Åke Blomqvist (2001) raises the issue of relevance in his review of my two papers (Nyman, 1999a,b). He agrees that because of the skewed distribution in health expenditures (which concentrates most of income transfers from health insurance in the hands of those few who become ill), income transfers explain a large portion of the additional consumption due to becoming insured. Nevertheless, he a...

BACKGROUND In Vietnam, illnesses create high out-of-pocket health care expenditures for households. In this study, the burden of illness in the Bavi district, Vietnam is measured based upon individual household health expenditures for communicable and non-communicable illnesses. The focus of the paper is on the relative effect of different illnesses on the total economic burden of health care o...

OBJECTIVE To provide guidance on selecting the most appropriate price index for adjusting health expenditures or costs for inflation. DATA SOURCES Major price index series produced by federal statistical agencies. STUDY DESIGN We compare the key characteristics of each index and develop suggestions on specific indexes to use in many common situations and general guidance in others. DATA C...