IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v133y2015icp21-27.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Patient access to health care and medicines across low-income countries

Author

Listed:
  • Srivastava, Divya
  • McGuire, Alistair

Abstract

This study explores the issue of demand for health care and medicines in low-income country settings. Using the World Health Survey, multivariate analysis of cross-sectional household data from 35 low-income countries found that when ill, patient demand for health care to visit a clinic or hospital is inelastic ranging from −0.19 to 0.11. The main determinants of health seeking behaviour include having insurance, having a chronic condition, high household expenditure, and marital status. Women, the educated and those living in urban settings are more likely to seek care in a clinic. These findings suggest low-income patients will experience access problems, raising important policy implications to improve access to health care and medicines in these settings.

Suggested Citation

  • Srivastava, Divya & McGuire, Alistair, 2015. "Patient access to health care and medicines across low-income countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 21-27.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:133:y:2015:i:c:p:21-27
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.03.021
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953615001653
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015.03.021?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cutler, David M., 2002. "Health care and the public sector," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 31, pages 2143-2243, Elsevier.
    2. Heller, Peter S., 1982. "A model of the demand for medical and health services in Peninsular Malaysia," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 267-284, January.
    3. Andreas Seiter, 2010. "A Practical Approach to Pharmaceutical Policy," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2468, December.
    4. Sisira Sarma, 2009. "Demand for outpatient healthcare," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 7(4), pages 265-277, December.
    5. Xu, Ke & Ravndal, Frode & Evans, David B. & Carrin, Guy, 2009. "Assessing the reliability of household expenditure data: Results of the World Health Survey," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 91(3), pages 297-305, August.
    6. McPake, Barbara, 1993. "User charges for health services in developing countries: A review of the economic literature," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 36(11), pages 1397-1405, June.
    7. Masahide Kondo & Barbara McPake, 2007. "Making choices between prepayment and user charges in Zambia. What are the results for equity?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(12), pages 1371-1387, December.
    8. Bolduc, Denis & Lacroix, Guy & Muller, Christophe, 1996. "The choice of medical providers in rural Benin: A comparison of discrete choice models," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4), pages 477-498, August.
    9. Pokhrel, Subhash & De Allegri, Manuela & Gbangou, Adijma & Sauerborn, Rainer, 2010. "Illness reporting and demand for medical care in rural Burkina Faso," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 70(11), pages 1693-1700, June.
    10. repec:wbk:wbpubs:12425 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Akin, John S & Griffin, Charles C & Guilkey, David K & Popkin, Barry M, 1986. "The Demand for Primary Health Care Services in the Bicol Region of the Philippines," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(4), pages 755-782, July.
    12. Dzator, Janet & Asafu-Adjaye, John, 2004. "A study of malaria care provider choice in Ghana," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 389-401, September.
    13. Ardeshir Sepehri & Robert Chernomas, 2001. "Are user charges efficiency- and equity-enhancing? A critical review of economic literature with particular reference to experience from developing countries," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(2), pages 183-209.
    14. Schwartz, J Brad & Akin, John S & Popkin, Barry M, 1988. "Price and Income Elasticities of Demand for Modern Health Care: The Case of Infant Delivery in the Philippines," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 2(1), pages 49-76, January.
    15. Laxminarayan, Ramanan & Parry, Ian W.H. & Smith, David L. & Klein, Eili Y., 2010. "Should new antimalarial drugs be subsidized?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 445-456, May.
    16. Gertler, Paul & Locay, Luis & Sanderson, Warren, 1987. "Are user fees regressive? : The welfare implications of health care financing proposals in Peru," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1-2), pages 67-88.
    17. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-255, March-Apr.
    18. W. Asenso-Okyere & Janet Dzator & Isaac Osel-akoto, 1996. "The behaviour towards malaria care—a multinomial logit approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 167-186, January.
    19. Masahide Kondo & Barbara McPake, 2007. "Making choices between prepayment and user charges in Zambia. What are the results for equity?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(12), pages 1371-1387.
    20. Van de ven, Wynand P.M.M. & Ellis, Randall P., 2000. "Risk adjustment in competitive health plan markets," Handbook of Health Economics, in: A. J. Culyer & J. P. Newhouse (ed.), Handbook of Health Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 14, pages 755-845, Elsevier.
    21. Asfaw, Abay & Braun, Joachim von & Klasen, Stephan, 2004. "How Big is the Crowding-Out Effect of User Fees in the Rural Areas of Ethiopia? Implications for Equity and Resources Mobilization," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(12), pages 2065-2081, December.
    22. John Anyanwu, 2007. "Demand for Health Care Institutions' Services: Evidence from Malaria Fever Treatment in Nigeria," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 19(2), pages 304-334.
    23. Bijan J. Borah, 2006. "A mixed logit model of health care provider choice: analysis of NSS data for rural India," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(9), pages 915-932, September.
    24. World Bank, 2005. "World Development Indicators 2005," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 12426, December.
    25. Goddard, Maria & Smith, Peter, 2001. "Equity of access to health care services: : Theory and evidence from the UK," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 53(9), pages 1149-1162, November.
    26. Falkingham, Jane, 2004. "Poverty, out-of-pocket payments and access to health care: evidence from Tajikistan," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 247-258, January.
    27. Le Grand, Julian, 1978. "The Distribution of Public Expenditure: The Case of Health Care," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 45(178), pages 125-142, May.
    28. Dyfrig A. Hughes & Adrian Bagust & Alan Haycox & Tom Walley, 2001. "The impact of non‐compliance on the cost‐effectiveness of pharmaceuticals: a review of the literature," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(7), pages 601-615, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Felipa de Mello-Sampayo, 2020. "Spatial Interaction Model for Healthcare Accessibility: What Scale Has to Do with It," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-19, May.
    2. Neely, Abigail H. & Ponshunmugam, Arunsrinivasan, 2019. "A qualitative approach to examining health care access in rural South Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 230(C), pages 214-221.
    3. Christine Ngaruiya & Samuel Oti & Steven van de Vijver & Catherine Kyobutungi & Caroline Free, 2019. "Target women: Equity in access to mHealth technology in a non-communicable disease care intervention in Kenya," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(9), pages 1-18, September.
    4. Dong-Shang Chang & Wen-Sheng Wang & Rouwen Wang, 2018. "Identifying Critical Factors of Sustainable Healthcare Institutions’ Indicators Under Taiwan’s National Health Insurance System," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 140(1), pages 287-307, November.
    5. Felipa De Mello-Sampayo, 2022. "Spatial and Temporal Analysis of COVID-19 in the Elderly Living in Residential Care Homes in Portugal," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(10), pages 1-14, May.
    6. Kim, Tae Jun & Vonneilich, Nico & Lüdecke, Daniel & von dem Knesebeck, Olaf, 2017. "Income, financial barriers to health care and public health expenditure: A multilevel analysis of 28 countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 176(C), pages 158-165.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Moussa Dieng & Martine Audibert & Jean-Yves Le Hesran & Anta Ta Dial, 2015. "Déterminants de la demande de soins en milieu péri-urbain dans un contexte de subvention à Pikine, Sénégal," CERDI Working papers halshs-01027504, HAL.
    2. Anta TA DIAL & Moussa DIENG & Martine AUDIBERT & Jean-Yves LE HESRAN, 2014. "Déterminants de la demande de soins en milieu péri-urbain dans un contexte de subvention à Pikine, Sénégal," Working Papers 201415, CERDI.
    3. Magnus Lindelow, 2004. "The Utilization of Curative Health Care in Mozambique: Does Income Matter?," Development and Comp Systems 0409057, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Ardeshir Sepehri & Robert Chernomas, 2001. "Are user charges efficiency- and equity-enhancing? A critical review of economic literature with particular reference to experience from developing countries," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(2), pages 183-209.
    5. Magnus Lindelow, 2003. "The Utilization of Curative Health Care in Mozambique: Does Income Matter?," Economics Series Working Papers WPS/2004-11, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    6. Hengjin Dong & Adjima Gbangou & Manuela Allegri & Subhash Pokhrel & Rainer Sauerborn, 2008. "The differences in characteristics between health-care users and non-users: implication for introducing community-based health insurance in Burkina Faso," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 9(1), pages 41-50, February.
    7. Sisira Sarma, 2009. "Demand for outpatient healthcare," Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, Springer, vol. 7(4), pages 265-277, December.
    8. Habtom, GebreMichael Kibreab & Ruys, Pieter, 2007. "The choice of a health care provider in Eritrea," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 202-217, January.
    9. Gertler, Paul J. & Hammer, Jeffrey S., 1997. "Strategies for pricing publicly provided health services," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1762, The World Bank.
    10. Christopher J. Cronin & David K. Guilkey & Ilene S. Speizer, 2019. "Measurement error in discrete health facility choice models: An example from urban Senegal," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(7), pages 1102-1120, November.
    11. Somanathan, Aparnaa, 2008. "Use of modern medical care for pregnancy and childbirth care : does female schooling matter ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4625, The World Bank.
    12. Dzator, Janet & Asafu-Adjaye, John, 2004. "A study of malaria care provider choice in Ghana," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 389-401, September.
    13. Canaviri, Jose, 2007. "A Random Parameter Logit model for modeling Health Care Provider Choice in Bolivia," MPRA Paper 3263, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Mocan, H. Naci & Tekin, Erdal & Zax, Jeffrey S., 2004. "The Demand for Medical Care in Urban China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 289-304, February.
    15. Óscar D. Lourenço & Pedro L. Ferreira, 2005. "Utilization of public health centres in Portugal: effect of time costs and other determinants. Finite mixture models applied to truncated samples," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(9), pages 939-953, September.
    16. Lindelow, Magnus, 2004. "Health care decisions as a family matter - intra-household education externalities and the utilization of health services," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3324, The World Bank.
    17. Germano Mwabu, 1997. "User Charges for Health Care: A Review of the Underlying Theory and Assumptions," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-1997-127, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    18. Asfaw, Abay & Braun, Joachim von & Klasen, Stephan, 2004. "How Big is the Crowding-Out Effect of User Fees in the Rural Areas of Ethiopia? Implications for Equity and Resources Mobilization," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(12), pages 2065-2081, December.
    19. Mwabu, Germano, 2007. "Health Economics for Low-Income Countries," Center Discussion Papers 10118, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    20. Somanathan, Aparnaa, 2008. "The impact of price subsidies on child health care use : evaluation of the Indonesian healthcard," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4622, The World Bank.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:133:y:2015:i:c:p:21-27. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.