Catastrophic Household Expenditure for Healthcare in Turkey: Clustering Analysis of Categorical Data

Onur Dogan, Gizem Kaya, Aycan Kaya and Hidayet Beyhan
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Onur Dogan: Department of Industrial Engineering, Izmir Bakircay University, Izmir 35665, Turkey
Gizem Kaya: Department of Management Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul 34367, Turkey
Aycan Kaya: Department of Industrial Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul 34367, Turkey
Hidayet Beyhan: Department of Management Engineering, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul 34367, Turkey

Data, 2019, vol. 4, issue 3, 1-10

Abstract: The amount of health expenditure at the household level is one of the most basic indicators of development in countries. In many countries, health expenditure increases relative to national income. If out-of-pocket health spending is higher than the income or too high, this indicates an economical alarm that causes a lower life standard, called catastrophic health expenditure. Catastrophic expenditure may be affected by many factors such as household type, property status, smoking and drinking alcohol habits, being active in sports, and having private health insurance. The study aims to investigate households with respect to catastrophic health expenditure by the clustering method. Clustering enables one to see the main similarity and difference between the groups. The results show that there are significant and interesting differences between the five groups. C4 households earn more but spend less money on health problems by the rate of 3.10% because people who do physical exercises regularly have fewer health problems. A household with a family with one adult, landlord and three people in total (mother or father and two children) in the cluster C5 earns much money and spends large amounts for health expenses than other clusters. C1 households with elementary families with three children, and who do not pay rent although they are not landlords have the highest catastrophic health expenditure. Households in C3 have a rate of 3.83% health expenditure rate on average, which is higher than other clusters. Households in the cluster C2 make the most catastrophic health expenditure.

Keywords: catastrophic household expenditure; health expenditures; socioeconomic factors; categorical clustering (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C8 C80 C81 C82 C83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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