Disease-Specific Impoverishment Impact of Out-of-Pocket Payments for Health Care: Evidence from Rural Bangladesh

Background Analysing disease-specific impoverishment impact of out-of-pocket (OOP) payments for health care is crucial for priority setting in any informed policy discussion. Lack of evidence, particularly in the Bangladesh context, motivates our paper. Objective To examine disease-specific impoverishment impact of OOP payments for health care. Methods The paper estimates the poverty impact of OOP payments by comparing the difference between the average level of headcount poverty and poverty gap with and without health care payments. We used primary data drawn from 3,941 households, distributed over 120 villages of seven districts in Bangladesh during August-September 2009. Findings We find that OOP outlays annually push 3.4 % households into poverty. The corresponding figures for those who had non-communicable diseases (NCDs), chronic illness,…