IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fth/bostin/0006.html

The Demand for Outpatient Medical Care in Rural Kenya

Author

Listed:
  • Randall P. Ellis

  • Germano M. Mwabu

Abstract

This paper develops a new specification of the demand for outpatient medical care and then estimates the model using data from a household survey conducted in rural Kenya in 1989. A four-stage nested logit model is used with a variable number of choices at several nodes. The first stage modeled is the choice of whether or not to report an illness, while the second is the probability of seeking treatment conditional on a positive report of illness. In contrast with the previous literature, the first two stages are modeled separately rather than as a single decision to seek treatment. The third stage, the individual's choice of a particular provider, is modeled as depending upon individual and household characteristics, as well as characteristics of specific health facilities from which choices are made. The fourth stage modeled is the choice of a mode of transport to the health facility (walking or taking the bus), an endogenous choice variable that greatly affects the total cost of seeking treatment. The previous empirical literature has not attempted to separate out the probability of reporting an illness from the probability of seeking treatment, and hence has estimated only the combined effect of variables such as income on the illness and the decision to seek treatment. This study finds that income and wealth variables are negatively related to reporting an illness, but positively related to deciding to seek treatment. Most of the demographic variables seem to influence the probability of reporting an illness rather than the decision to seek treatment. This finding is significant because if the results from one setting are applied to others, it is important to know whether demand for health care depends upon the underlying illness patterns or the demographics of the population. This study would suggest that the former are more important. The choice of mode of transportation is found to be is clearly endogenous, and affected by travel time, travel costs, and the
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Randall P. Ellis & Germano M. Mwabu, 1991. "The Demand for Outpatient Medical Care in Rural Kenya," Papers 0006, Boston University - Industry Studies Programme.
    • Handle: RePEc:fth:bostin:0006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a
    for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Mary Ngendo Mwami & Martine Odhiambo Oleche, 2017. "Determinants of Utilization of Health Care Services in Kenya," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, Human Resource Management Academic Research Society, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 7(10), pages 132-156, October.
    2. Gan, Lydia L. & Frederick, James R., 2010. "The Willingness to Spend on Healthcare: Evidence from Singapore," Review of Applied Economics, Lincoln University, Department of Financial and Business Systems, vol. 6(01-2), pages 1-15, April.
    3. Jimenez, Emmanuel & DEC, 1994. "Human and physical infrastructure : public investment and pricing policies in developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1281, The World Bank.
    4. repec:aer:wpaper:155 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Dominic Hodgkin, 1996. "Household characteristics affecting where mothers deliver in rural Kenya," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 5(4), pages 333-340, July.
    6. Charasse-Pouélé, Cécile & Fournier, Martin, 2006. "Health disparities between racial groups in South Africa: A decomposition analysis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(11), pages 2897-2914, June.
    7. Annemarie Wouters & Anthony Kouzis, 1996. "Cost recovery and improved drug availability in Niger — implications for total patient treatment costs," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 5(1), pages 37-59, January.
    8. John S. Akin & David K. Guilkey & Paul L. Hutchinson & Michael T. McIntosh, 1998. "Price elasticities of demand for curative health care with control for sample selectivity on endogenous illness: an analysis for Sri Lanka," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(6), pages 509-531, September.
    9. Dow, W.H., 1995. "Discrete Choice Estimation of Price-Elasticities: The Benefits of a Flexible Behavioral Model of Health Care Demand," Papers 739, Yale - Economic Growth Center.
    10. Dow, W.H., 1995. "Unconditional Demand for Curative Health Inputs: Does Selection on Health Status Matter in the Long Run?," Papers 740, Yale - Economic Growth Center.

    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:fth:bostin:0006. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Thomas Krichel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ispbuus.html .

    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.