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Catastrophic health expenditure and poverty in Egypt: an analysis of household survey data
Out-of-pocket health payments can cause financial hardship to households, which may push them into poverty. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the impact of out-of-pocket health payments on households' economic situation in Egypt using a national representative survey. On the other hand, the c...
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| Format: | Thesis |
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AUC Knowledge Fountain
2011
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| Summary: | Out-of-pocket health payments can cause financial hardship to households, which may push them into poverty. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the impact of out-of-pocket health payments on households' economic situation in Egypt using a national representative survey. On the other hand, the conventional poverty estimates do not take the effect of out-of-pocket health payments on households into account. Therefore, by reassessing the poverty estimates taking into account out-of-pocket health payments, this thesis provides new poverty estimates that reflect the poverty impact of out-of-pocket health payments. The thesis adopts the World Health Organization's methodology in measuring the extent of catastrophic health expenditure and impoverishment. It uses a logit model to identify the determinants of catastrophic health expenditure. The quantitative analysis yields that out-of-pocket health payments exacerbate households' living especially the poor and the near poor. The thesis suggests that 6% of households encounter catastrophic health expenditure in 2010. It estimates that the poverty line for a household composed of four members, which is the average household size, equals LE 673.8 per month. It suggests that the 19.1% of households spend below the poverty line. However, additional 7.4% of households fall below the poverty line after paying for health care. In other words, the size of poverty in Egypt including those who are impoverished by health payment is 26.5%. Additionally, out-of pocket health payments have exacerbated the normalized poverty gap by 1.4%. The econometric analysis suggests that household with chronic sick member and poor households are the most vulnerable to catastrophic health expenditure. |
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