Catastrophic Healthcare Spending in Tanzania
Poster Number
13B
Format
Poster Presentation
Faculty Mentor Name
Michelle Amaral
Faculty Mentor Department
Economics
Abstract/Artist Statement
Few papers address the factors that affect a person's risk of reaching a catastrophic level of health spending. For less developed countries like Tanzania, with high levels of out of pocket health spending, determining the factors that affect risk is more important than comparing different countries’ percentage of citizens who are already at the catastrophic level. The data used was published by World Bank for their Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS), and was collected over a one-year period starting in October of 2008. This paper uses a Two-part Model to investigate which factors in the regression significantly affect the risk of catastrophic health spending. A Two-part Model allows the test to utilize all of the data collected rather than just using the data for the households that are at the catastrophic level. Estimations found three variables that significantly impact catastrophic payments in Tanzania. The variables; 1) age of the household head, 2) percentage of the household who saw a healthcare provider, and 3) percentage of the household who were hospitalized were all found to be statistically significant at the one-percent level. Future work might focus on combining this data with the other two years of the LSMS and comparing results with results from countries similar to Tanzania. This may provide policy makers with ideas of social safety nets that they can implement to help lower their citizen's risk of reaching catastrophic levels of health spending.
Location
DeRosa University Center, Ballroom
Start Date
29-4-2017 10:00 AM
End Date
29-4-2017 12:00 PM
Catastrophic Healthcare Spending in Tanzania
DeRosa University Center, Ballroom
Few papers address the factors that affect a person's risk of reaching a catastrophic level of health spending. For less developed countries like Tanzania, with high levels of out of pocket health spending, determining the factors that affect risk is more important than comparing different countries’ percentage of citizens who are already at the catastrophic level. The data used was published by World Bank for their Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS), and was collected over a one-year period starting in October of 2008. This paper uses a Two-part Model to investigate which factors in the regression significantly affect the risk of catastrophic health spending. A Two-part Model allows the test to utilize all of the data collected rather than just using the data for the households that are at the catastrophic level. Estimations found three variables that significantly impact catastrophic payments in Tanzania. The variables; 1) age of the household head, 2) percentage of the household who saw a healthcare provider, and 3) percentage of the household who were hospitalized were all found to be statistically significant at the one-percent level. Future work might focus on combining this data with the other two years of the LSMS and comparing results with results from countries similar to Tanzania. This may provide policy makers with ideas of social safety nets that they can implement to help lower their citizen's risk of reaching catastrophic levels of health spending.