Fieldwork conducted in Kpelle village in north-central Liberia revealed that health-care expenses constitute a major part of domestic spending. The actual transactions for major health-care expenditures are handled by men, typically using income that jointly belongs to the couple in addition to the husband's personal income. Women are likely to spend their personal incomes on minor health expe...

BACKGROUND China's health system reform launched in early 2000s has achieved better coverage of health insurance and significantly increased the use of healthcare for vast majority of Chinese population. This study was to examine changes in the structure of total health expenditures in China in 2000-2011, and to investigate the financial burden of healthcare placed on its population, particular...

OBJECTIVE To assess the Self Employed Women's Association's Medical Insurance Fund in Gujarat in terms of insurance coverage according to income groups, protection of claimants from costs of hospitalization, time between discharge and reimbursement, and frequency of use. METHODS One thousand nine hundred and thirty claims submitted over six years were analysed. FINDINGS Two hundred and fift...

Background India’s health sector witnessed some major policy changes in 1990s that aimed at making health services more accessible to the population.   Methods In this paper, I tried to present some preliminary results of the significant changes that occurred between 1995/6 and 2004, especially in relation to the question of access to healthcare for the poor and rural population using data from...