Out-of-Pocket Expenditures

Posted by: Daniel Reijer on Tue, 05 Apr 2005 07:45:17

Spending by individuals and households accounts for a substantial part of total financial resource flows on health. These out-of-pocket expenditures remain poorly visible in resource tracking efforts since mapping them requires the use of specialised surveys. Experience has taught that general income and expenditure surveys provide inadequate tools to measure these private health expenses.

The RF project is planning to undertake a study in 2005 that consists of comparative research in two countries on out-of-pocket expenditures on HIV/AIDS and general reproductive health. Data will be collected in surveillance sites of INDEPTH, the international network of field sites with continuous demographic and health surveillance (www.indepth-network.net). The surveillance sites provide longitudinal information on socio-economic and health status of populations in experimental and control areas. Presently, 36 sites in 19 different countries are associated with INDEPTH, primarily in Africa (25) and Asia (9).

The aims of the study are:

To directly relate out-of-pocket expenses to the wealth status of households and the health status of its members, as well as to contributions by the public and private sector to health expenses.
To assess the equity of distribution of funds across health-status, wealth-status, gender and life-course stage.
To strengthen health resource tracking capacity of counterpart organisations and stimulate south-south co-operation.

Browse in Articles Thematic Studies Reproductive Health Accounts Sector-Wide Approaches Global Estimate Out-of-Pocket Expenditures	Out-of-Pocket Expenditures Posted by: Daniel Reijer on Tue, 05 Apr 2005 07:45:17 Spending by individuals and households accounts for a substantial part of total financial resource flows on health. These out-of-pocket expenditures remain poorly visible in resource tracking efforts since mapping them requires the use of specialised surveys. Experience has taught that general income and expenditure surveys provide inadequate tools to measure these private health expenses. The RF project is planning to undertake a study in 2005 that consists of comparative research in two countries on out-of-pocket expenditures on HIV/AIDS and general reproductive health. Data will be collected in surveillance sites of INDEPTH, the international network of field sites with continuous demographic and health surveillance (www.indepth-network.net). The surveillance sites provide longitudinal information on socio-economic and health status of populations in experimental and control areas. Presently, 36 sites in 19 different countries are associated with INDEPTH, primarily in Africa (25) and Asia (9). The aims of the study are: To directly relate out-of-pocket expenses to the wealth status of households and the health status of its members, as well as to contributions by the public and private sector to health expenses. To assess the equity of distribution of funds across health-status, wealth-status, gender and life-course stage. To strengthen health resource tracking capacity of counterpart organisations and stimulate south-south co-operation.