Effect of health insurance coverage on health care utilisation in Zambia

Mulenga, Kabaso; Booysen, Frederik

مجلة الباحث
Volume 23, Numéro 1, Pages 77-85
2023-12-31

Effect Of Health Insurance Coverage On Health Care Utilisation In Zambia

Authors : Mulenga Kabaso . Booysen Frederik .

Abstract

Background: Access to health care is desirable to attain better health outcomes. However, access to health care and health insurance schemes remains low in Zambia, especially among the poor. This paper examines the effects of health insurance coverage on health care utilisation in Zambia. Methods: Data were derived from the 2014 Zambia Household Health Expenditure and Utilization Survey. Propensity score matching and endogenous treatment effect models were used to estimate the effects of health insurance coverage on health care utilisation. Health insurance coverage was disaggregated into overall, public health insurance and private health insurance. Health care utilisation was measured using the number of outpatient visits and the number of admissions. Results: The paper found that overall and private health insurance coverage positively impacted all the health care utilisation measures. However, the effect of public health insurance coverage on utilisation was not significant at conventional levels. Conclusion: This paper shows that health insurance coverage in Zambia is very low and that overall and private health insurance coverage does increase health care utilisation. Thus, there is scope to increase health insurance coverage if the utilisation of health care services is to be improved, especially through the newly introduced National Health Insurance Scheme.