Ke Xu

Bio: Ke Xu is an academic researcher from World Health Organization. The author has contributed to research in topics: Health care & Health policy. The author has an hindex of 21, co-authored 33 publications receiving 5327 citations.

Protecting households from catastrophic health spending.

Abstract: Many countries rely heavily on patients’ out-of-pocket payments to providers to finance their health care systems. This prevents some people from seeking care and results in financial catastrophe a...

Coping with out-of-pocket health payments: empirical evidence from 15 African countries

Abstract: OBJECTIVE: To explore factors associated with household coping behaviours in the face of health expenditures in 15 African countries and provide evidence for policy-makers in designing financial health protection mechanisms. METHODS: A series of logit regressions were performed to explore factors correlating with a greater likelihood of selling assets, borrowing or both to finance health care. The average partial effects for different levels of spending on inpatient care were derived by computing the partial effects for each observation and taking the average across the sample. Data used in the analysis were from the 2002-2003 World Health Survey, which asked how households had financed out-of-pocket payments over the previous year. Households selling assets or borrowing money were compared to those that financed health care from income or savings. Those that used insurance were excluded. For the analysis, a value of 1 was assigned to selling assets or borrowing money and a value of 0 to other coping mechanisms. FINDINGS: Coping through borrowing and selling assets ranged from 23% of households in Zambia to 68% in Burkina Faso. In general, the highest income groups were less likely to borrow and sell assets, but coping mechanisms did not differ strongly among lower income quintiles. Households with higher inpatient expenses were significantly more likely to borrow and deplete assets compared to those financing outpatient care or routine medical expenses, except in Burkina Faso, Namibia and Swaziland. In eight countries, the coefficient on the highest quintile of inpatient spending had a P-value below 0.01. CONCLUSION: In most African countries, the health financing system is too weak to protect households from health shocks. Borrowing and selling assets to finance health care are common. Formal prepayment schemes could benefit many households, and an overall social protection network could help to mitigate the long-term effects of ill health on household well-being and support poverty reduction.

To retain or remove user fees?: reflections on the current debate in low- and middle-income countries.

Abstract: Many low- and middle-income countries continue to search for better ways of financing their health systems. Common to many of these systems are problems of inadequate resource mobilisation, as well as inefficient and inequitable use of existing resources. The poor and other vulnerable groups who need healthcare the most are also the most affected by these shortcomings. In particular, these groups have a high reliance on user fees and other out-of-pocket expenditures on health which are both impoverishing and provide a financial barrier to care. It is within this context, and in light of recent policy initiatives on user fee removal, that a debate on the role of user fees in health financing systems has recently returned. This paper provides some reflections on the recent user fees debate, drawing from the evidence presented and subsequent discussions at a recent UNICEF consultation on user fees in the health sector, and relates the debate to the wider issue of access to adequate healthcare. It is argued that, from the wealth of evidence on user fees and other health system reforms, a broad consensus is emerging. First, user fees are an important barrier to accessing health services, especially for poor people. They also negatively impact on adherence to long-term expensive treatments. However, this is offset to some extent by potentially positive impacts on quality. Secondly, user fees are not the only barrier that the poor face. As well as other cost barriers, a number of quality, information and cultural barriers must also be overcome before the poor can access adequate health services. Thirdly, initial evidence on fee abolition in Uganda suggests that this policy has improved access to outpatient services for the poor. For this to be sustainable and effective in reaching the poor, fee removal needs to be part of a broader package of reforms that includes increased budgets to offset lost fee revenue (as was the case in Uganda). Fourthly, implementation matters: if fees are to be abolished, this needs clear communication with a broad stakeholder buy-in, careful monitoring to ensure that official fees are not replaced by informal fees, and appropriate management of the alternative financing mechanisms that are replacing user fees. Fifthly, context is crucial. For instance, immediate fee removal in Cambodia would be inappropriate, given that fees replaced irregular and often high informal fees. In this context, equity funds and eventual expansion of health insurance are perhaps more viable policy options. Conversely, in countries where user fees have had significant adverse effects on access and generated only limited benefits, fee abolition is probably a more attractive policy option. Removing user fees has the potential to improve access to health services, especially for the poor, but it is not appropriate in all contexts. Analysis should move on from broad evaluations of user fees towards exploring how best to dismantle the multiple barriers to access in specific contexts.

Analyzing health equity using household survey data : a guide to techniques and their implementation

Abstract: This book shows how to implement a variety of analytic tools that allow health equity - along different dimensions and in different spheres - to be quantified. Questions that the techniques can help provide answers for include the following: Have gaps in health outcomes between the poor and the better-off grown in specific countries or in the developing world as a whole? Are they larger in one country than in another? Are health sector subsidies more equally distributed in some countries than in others? Is health care utilization equitably distributed in the sense that people in equal need receive similar amounts of health care irrespective of their income? Are health care payments more progressive in one health care financing system than in another? What are catastrophic payments? How can they be measured? How far do health care payments impoverish households? This volume has a simple aim: to provide researchers and analysts with a step-by-step practical guide to the measurement of a variety of aspects of health equity. Each chapter includes worked examples and computer code. The authors hope that these guides, and the easy-to-implement computer routines contained in them, will stimulate yet more analysis in the field of health equity, especially in developing countries. They hope this, in turn, will lead to more comprehensive monitoring of trends in health equity, a better understanding of the causes of these inequities, more extensive evaluation of the impacts of development programs on health equity, and more effective policies and programs to reduce inequities in the health sector.