Effect of Health Insurance Uptake on Hesitancy toward COVID-19 Vaccines in Nigeria: A Recursive Bivariate Probit and Decomposition Estimation

Abayomi Samuel Oyekale ()
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Abayomi Samuel Oyekale: Department of Agricultural Economic and Extension, North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, Mmabatho 2735, South Africa

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 3, 1-16

Abstract: Moral hazard remains one of the major challenges of health insurance administration. This paper recursively analyzed the effect of health insurance on the willingness to take COVID-19 vaccines in Nigeria. The data comprised 1892 unvaccinated respondents in the 2021/2022 National Longitudinal Phone Survey (NLPS). The data were analyzed with Coban’s recursive probit regression and decomposition approaches. The results revealed that 5.87% were health insured, and 7.93% were willing to take COVID-19 vaccines. Health insurance uptake significantly increased ( p < 0.05) with an adult being the decision-maker on vaccination, requiring family planning, and urban residence, while it reduced with loss of jobs and residence in the southeast and southwest zones. In addition, health insurance significantly ( p < 0.01) increased the willingness to take COVID-19 vaccines, along with each adult, all adults, and households’ heads being the major vaccination decision-makers, loss of jobs, and support for making COVID-19 vaccines compulsory. The average treatment effects (ATEs) and average treatment effect on the treated (ATET) of health insurance were significant ( p < 0.01), with positive impacts on willingness to be vaccinated. It was concluded that policy reforms to promote access to health insurance would enhance COVID-19 vaccination in Nigeria. In addition, hesitancy toward COVID-19 vaccines can be reduced by targeting adults and household heads with adequate information, while health insurance uptake should target southern states and rural areas.

Keywords: health insurance; moral hazard; COVID-19; vaccination; recursive probit model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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