IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jintdv/v21y2009i2p212-230.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dealing with the cost of illness: The experience of four villages in Lao PDR

Author

Listed:
  • Walaiporn Patcharanarumol
  • Anne Mills

    (Department of Public Health and Policy, LSHTM London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK)

  • Viroj Tangcharoensathien

    (International Health Policy Program (IHPP-Thailand), Ministry of Public Health, Nonthaburi Province, Thailand)

Abstract

This paper analyses household coping strategies for illness in four Lao villages. The villagers dealt with health expenditure themselves, using coping mechanisms which drew mainly on social networks within the community. They strongly believed in the principle of paying user fees and did not consider exemption from fees an option. A total of 12 households (6 per cent of households) faced catastrophic expenditure arising from healthcare payments. The national policy on exemptions did not protect the poor and the study demonstrates that there is an urgent need for the government to improve the design and implementation of exemptions or reform the policy on subsidising health care. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Suggested Citation

  • Walaiporn Patcharanarumol & Anne Mills & Viroj Tangcharoensathien, 2009. "Dealing with the cost of illness: The experience of four villages in Lao PDR," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(2), pages 212-230.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:jintdv:v:21:y:2009:i:2:p:212-230
    DOI: 10.1002/jid.1549
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/jid.1549
    File Function: Link to full text; subscription required
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/jid.1549?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sauerborn, R. & Adams, A. & Hien, M., 1996. "Household strategies to cope with the economic costs of illness," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 291-301, August.
    2. Wagstaff, Adam, 2007. "The economic consequences of health shocks: Evidence from Vietnam," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 82-100, January.
    3. Lucy Gilson & Steven Russell & Kent Buse, 1995. "The political economy of user fees with targeting: Developing equitable health financing policy," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(3), pages 369-401, May.
    4. Carrin, Guy & Ron, Aviva & Hui, Yang & Hong, Wang & Tuohong, Zhang & Licheng, Zhang & Shuo, Zhang & Yide, Ye & Jiaying, Chen & Qicheng, Jiang & Zhaoyang, Zhang & Jun, Yu & Xuesheng, Li, 1999. "The reform of the rural cooperative medical system in the People's Republic of China: interim experience in 14 pilot counties," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 48(7), pages 961-972, April.
    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. Cleary, Susan & Birch, Steve & Chimbindi, Natsayi & Silal, Sheetal & McIntyre, Di, 2013. "Investigating the affordability of key health services in South Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 37-46.

    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. Kim, Younhee & Yang, Bongmin, 2011. "Relationship between catastrophic health expenditures and household incomes and expenditure patterns in South Korea," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(2), pages 239-246.
    2. Virginie Comblon & Karine Marazyan, 2017. "Labor Supply Responses to Chronic Illness in Senegal," Working Papers hal-04096137, HAL.
    3. Gilson, Lucy & Kalyalya, Denny & Kuchler, Felix & Lake, Sally & Oranga, Hezron & Ouendo, Marius, 2001. "Strategies for promoting equity: experience with community financing in three African countries," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 37-67, October.
    4. Abhishek Dureja & Digvijay S. Negi, 2022. "Coping with the consequences of short‐term illness shocks: The role of intra‐household labor substitution," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(7), pages 1402-1422, July.
    5. Gabriela Flores & Jaya Krishnakumar & Owen O'Donnell & Eddy van Doorslaer, 2008. "Coping with health-care costs: implications for the measurement of catastrophic expenditures and poverty," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(12), pages 1393-1412.
    6. Manoj Mohanan, 2008. "Consumption Smoothing and Household Responses: Evidence from Random Exogenous Health Shocks," CID Working Papers 23, Center for International Development at Harvard University.
    7. Woode, Maame Esi, 2017. "Parental health shocks and schooling: The impact of mutual health insurance in Rwanda," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 35-47.
    8. Sophie Mitra & Michael Palmer & Daniel Mont & Nora Groce, 2016. "Can Households Cope with Health Shocks in Vietnam?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(7), pages 888-907, July.
    9. McIntyre, Diane & Thiede, Michael & Dahlgren, Göran & Whitehead, Margaret, 2006. "What are the economic consequences for households of illness and of paying for health care in low- and middle-income country contexts?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(4), pages 858-865, February.
    10. Axel Demenet, 2016. "Health Shocks and Permanent Income Loss: the Household Business Channel," Working Papers DT/2016/11, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    11. Pal, Rama, 2010. "Borrowing for hospitalization in India," MPRA Paper 29404, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Raissa Sorgho & Isabel Mank & Moubassira Kagoné & Aurélia Souares & Ina Danquah & Rainer Sauerborn, 2020. "“We Will Always Ask Ourselves the Question of How to Feed the Family”: Subsistence Farmers’ Perceptions on Adaptation to Climate Change in Burkina Faso," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(19), pages 1-25, October.
    13. Mohammad Abu-Zaineh & Habiba Romdhane & Bruno Ventelou & Jean-Paul Moatti & Arfa Chokri, 2013. "Appraising financial protection in health: the case of Tunisia," International Journal of Health Economics and Management, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 73-93, March.
    14. Bratti, Massimiliano & Mendola, Mariapia, 2014. "Parental health and child schooling," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 94-108.
    15. Richard J. Cebula, 2008. "Small Firm Size and Health Insurance: A Private Enterprise Perspective," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 24(Fall 2008), pages 51-77.
    16. Kuangnan Fang & Yefei Jiang & BenChang Shia & Shuangge Ma, 2012. "Impact of Illness and Medical Expenditure on Household Consumptions: A Survey in Western China," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(12), pages 1-8, December.
    17. Wagstaff, Adam & Yu, Shengchao, 2007. "Do health sector reforms have their intended impacts?: The World Bank's Health VIII project in Gansu province, China," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(3), pages 505-535, May.
    18. Chima, Reginald Ikechukwu & Goodman, Catherine A. & Mills, Anne, 2003. "The economic impact of malaria in Africa: a critical review of the evidence," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 17-36, January.
    19. Sowmya Dhanaraj, 2014. "Health Shocks and Coping Strategies: State Health Insurance Scheme of Andhra Pradesh, India," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2014-003, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. Neelsen, Sven & Limwattananon, Supon & O'Donnell, Owen & van Doorslaer, Eddy, 2019. "Universal health coverage: A (social insurance) job half done?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 246-258.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:wly:jintdv:v:21:y:2009:i:2:p:212-230. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/5102/home .

    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.