Assessing the relationship between out-of-pocket spending on blood pressure and diabetes medication and household catastrophic health expenditure: evidence from Pakistan.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Treatment of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in low-and-middle-income countries (LMICs) is costly and could expose households to financial hardship and vulnerability. This paper examines the association between medication costs of two major NCDs - hypertension (blood pressure) and diabetes, and household-level incidences of catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) in a South Asian LMIC, Pakistan.

Methods

The study analyzes self-reported blood pressure and diabetes (BPD) medication expenditure from the latest version (2015-16) of the Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES) of Pakistan, a nationally representative survey of 24,238 households. The incidence of CHE is defined as households' out-of-pocket (OOP) medical expenditure exceeding 10% of the total household

SUBMITTER: Datta BK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6334430 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature