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Examinando los gastos catastróficos en salud con umbrales variables utilizando diarios de gastos de consumo en los hogares
Author(s) -
Onoka Chima A.,
Onwujekwe Obinna E.,
Hanson Kara,
Uzochukwu Benjamin S.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
tropical medicine and international health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.056
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1365-3156
pISSN - 1360-2276
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-3156.2011.02836.x
Subject(s) - consumption (sociology) , energy expenditure , variable (mathematics) , environmental health , medicine , economics , demography , mathematics , social science , sociology , endocrinology , mathematical analysis
Summary Objective Using uniform thresholds and a set of variable threshold levels, this study examined the incidence of catastrophe amongst households of different socio‐economic status (SES) quintiles. Methods A household diary was used to collect illness and household consumption expenditure data from 1128 households over 1 month. Catastrophic health expenditure was examined based on uniform threshold levels of non‐food expenditure and a novel set of variable thresholds in which the levels for various SES groups were weighted by the ratio of household expenditure on food. Results A total of 167 households (14.8%) experienced catastrophe at a non‐food expenditure threshold of 40%, with 22.6% and 7.6% of the poorest and richest household quintiles experiencing catastrophe. For the first set of variable scenarios, the thresholds for the poorest and richest household quintiles were 5% and 29.6% and levels of catastrophe were 44.7% and 12.0%, respectively, while the overall level was 36.5%. In the second scenario, the thresholds were 6.8% and 40%, and the levels of catastrophe were 42.5% and 7.6%, respectively, while the overall level was 32.0%. Conclusions High levels of catastrophic expenditure exist in Nigeria. Use of variable thresholds to measure catastrophe led to higher overall and disaggregated levels of catastrophe. Such a measure is argued to be more appropriate for the examination of catastrophe.