Health Economics Review 

About: Health Economics Review is an academic journal published by Springer Science+Business Media. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Public health & Health care. It has an ISSN identifier of 2191-1991. It is also open access. Over the lifetime, 515 publications have been published receiving 8010 citations.

Wealth and antenatal care use: implications for maternal health care utilisation in Ghana

Abstract: The study investigates the effect of wealth on maternal health care utilization in Ghana via its effect on Antenatal care use. Antenatal care serves as the initial point of contact of expectant mothers to maternal health care providers before delivery. The study is pivoted on the introduction of the free maternal health care policy in April 2005 in Ghana with the aim of reducing the financial barrier to the use of maternal health care services, to help reduce the high rate of maternal deaths. Prior to the introduction of the policy, studies found wealth to have a positive and significant influence on the use of Antenatal care. It is thus expected that with the policy, wealth should not influence the use of maternal health care significantly. Using secondary data from the 2008 Ghana Demographic and Health survey, the results have revealed that wealth still has a significant influence on adequate use of Antenatal care. Education, age, number of living children, transportation and health insurance are other factors that were found to influence the use of Antenatal care in Ghana. There also exist considerable variations in the use of Antenatal care in the geographical regions and between the rural and urban dwellers. It is recommended that to improve the use of Antenatal care and hence maternal health care utilization, some means of support is provided especially to women within the lowest wealth quintiles, like the provision and availability of recommended medication at the health center; secondly, women should be encouraged to pursue education to at least the secondary level since this improves their use of maternal health services. Policy should also target mothers who have had the experience of child birth on the need to use adequate Antenatal care for each pregnancy, since these mothers tend to use less antenatal care for subsequent pregnancies. The regional disparities found may be due to inaccessibility and unavailability of health facilities and services in the rural areas and in some of the regions. The government and other service providers (NGOs, religious institutions and private providers) may endeavor to improve on the distribution of health facilities, human resources, good roads and necessary infrastructure among other things in order to facilitate easy access to health care providers especially for the rural dwellers.

The national health insurance scheme: perceptions and experiences of health care providers and clients in two districts of Ghana

Abstract: Prepayments and risk pooling through social health insurance has been advocated by international development organizations. Social health insurance is seen as a mechanism that helps mobilize resources for health, pool risk, and provide more access to health care services for the poor. Hence Ghana implemented the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to help promote access to health care services for Ghanaians. The study examined the influence of the NHIS on the behavior of health care providers in their treatment of insured and uninsured clients. The study took place in Bolgatanga (urban) and Builsa (rural) districts in Ghana. Data was collected through exit survey with 200 insured and uninsured clients, 15 in-depth interviews with health care providers and health insurance managers, and 8 focus group discussions with insured and uninsured community members. The NHIS promoted access for insured and mobilized revenue for health care providers. Both insured and uninsured were satisfied with care (survey finding). However, increased utilization of health care services by the insured leading to increased workloads for providers influenced their behavior towards the insured. Most of the insured perceived and experienced long waiting times, verbal abuse, not being physically examined and discrimination in favor of the affluent and uninsured. The insured attributed their experience to the fact that they were not making immediate payments for services. A core challenge of the NHIS was a delay in reimbursement which affected the operations of health facilities and hence influenced providers’ behavior as well. Providers preferred clients who would make instant payments for health care services. Few of the uninsured were utilizing health facilities and visit only in critical conditions. This is due to the increased cost of health care services under the NHIS. The perceived opportunistic behavior of the insured by providers was responsible for the difference in the behavior of providers favoring the uninsured. Besides, the delay in reimbursement also accounted for providers’ negative attitude towards the insured. There is urgent need to address these issues in order to promote confidence in the NHIS, as well as its sustainability for the achievement of universal coverage.

The effects of public and private health care expenditure on health status in sub-Saharan Africa: new evidence from panel data analysis

Abstract: Health care expenditure has been low over the years in developing regions of the world. A majority of countries in these regions, especially sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), rely on donor grants and loans to finance health care. Such expenditures are not only unsustainable but also inadequate considering the enormous health care burden in the region. The objectives of this study are to determine the effect of health care expenditure on population health status and to examine the effect by public and private expenditure sources. The study used panel data from 1995 to 2010 covering 44 countries in SSA. Fixed and random effects panel data regression models were fitted to determine the effects of health care expenditure on health outcomes. The results show that health care expenditure significantly influences health status through improving life expectancy at birth, reducing death and infant mortality rates. Both public and private health care spending showed strong positive association with health status even though public health care spending had relatively higher impact. The findings imply that health care expenditure remains a crucial component of health status improvement in sub-Saharan African countries. Increasing health care expenditure will be a significant step in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Further, policy makers need to establish effective public-private partnership in allocating health care expenditures.

Statistical models for the analysis of skewed healthcare cost data: a simulation study

Abstract: Skewed data is the main issue in statistical models in healthcare costs. Data transformation is a conventional method to decrease skewness, but there are some disadvantages. Some recent studies have employed generalized linear models (GLMs) and Cox proportional hazard regression as alternative estimators. The aim of this study was to investigate how well these alternative estimators perform in terms of bias and precision when the data are skewed. The primary outcome was an estimation of population means of healthcare costs and the secondary outcome was the impact of a covariate on healthcare cost. Alternative estimators, such as ordinary least squares (OLS) for Ln(y) or Log(y), Gamma, Weibull and Cox proportional hazard regression models, were compared using Monte Carlo simulation under different situations, which were generated from skewed distributions. We found that there was not one best model across all generated conditions. However, GLMs, especially the Gamma regression model, behaved well in the estimation of population means of healthcare costs. The results showed that the Cox proportional hazard model exhibited a poor estimation of population means of healthcare costs and the β1 even under proportional hazard data. Approximately results are consistent by increasing the sample size. However, increasing the sample size could improve the performance of the OLS-based model.

Experimental measurement of preferences in health and healthcare using best-worst scaling: an overview

Abstract: Best-worst scaling (BWS), also known as maximum-difference scaling, is a multiattribute approach to measuring preferences. BWS aims at the analysis of preferences regarding a set of attributes, their levels or alternatives. It is a stated-preference method based on the assumption that respondents are capable of making judgments regarding the best and the worst (or the most and least important, respectively) out of three or more elements of a choice-set. As is true of discrete choice experiments (DCE) generally, BWS avoids the known weaknesses of rating and ranking scales while holding the promise of generating additional information by making respondents choose twice, namely the best as well as the worst criteria. A systematic literature review found 53 BWS applications in health and healthcare. This article expounds possibilities of application, the underlying theoretical concepts and the implementation of BWS in its three variants: ‘object case’, ‘profile case’, ‘multiprofile case’. This paper contains a survey of BWS methods and revolves around study design, experimental design, and data analysis. Moreover the article discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the three types of BWS distinguished and offered an outlook. A companion paper focuses on special issues of theory and statistical inference confronting BWS in preference measurement.