The impact of subsidized private health insurance and health facility upgrades on healthcare utilization and spending in rural Nigeria

Emily Gustafsson-Wright (), Gosia Popławska (), Zlata Tanović () and Jacques Gaag ()
Additional contact information
Emily Gustafsson-Wright: Brookings Institution
Gosia Popławska: University of Oxford
Zlata Tanović: Vrije University (VU)
Jacques Gaag: Brookings Institution

International Journal of Health Economics and Management, 2018, vol. 18, issue 3, No 1, 276 pages

Abstract: Abstract This paper analyzes the quantitative impact of an intervention that provides subsidized low-cost private health insurance together with health facility upgrades in Nigeria. The evaluation, which measures impact on healthcare utilization and spending, is based on a quasi-experimental design and utilizes three population-based household surveys over a 4-year period. After 4 years, the intervention increased healthcare use by 25.2 percentage points in the treatment area overall and by 17.7 percentage points among the insured. Utilization of modern healthcare facilities increased after 4 years by 20.4 percentage points in the treatment area and by 18.4 percentage points among the insured due to the intervention. After 2 years of program implementation, the intervention reduced healthcare spending by 51% compared with baseline, while after 4 years, spending resumed to pre-intervention levels.

Keywords: Health insurance; Financial risk; Nigeria; Impact evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 I3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10754-017-9231-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:ijhcfe:v:18:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s10754-017-9231-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... th/journal/10754/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10754-017-9231-y

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Health Economics and Management is currently edited by Leemore Dafny, Robert Town, Mark Pauly, David Dranove and Pedro Pita Barros

More articles in International Journal of Health Economics and Management from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().