Do employer-sponsored health insurance schemes affect the utilisation of medically trained providers and out-of-pocket payments among ready-made garment workers? A case–control study in Bangladesh

OBJECTIVE: We estimated the effect of an employer-sponsored health insurance (ESHI) scheme on healthcare utilisation of medically trained providers and reduction of out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure among ready-made garment (RMG) workers. DESIGN: We used a case-control study design with cross-sectional preintervention and postintervention surveys. SETTINGS: The study was conducted among workers of seven purposively selected RMG factories in Shafipur, Gazipur in Bangladesh. PARTICIPANTS: In total, 1924 RMG workers (480 from the insured and 482 from the uninsured, in each period) were surveyed from insured and uninsured RMG factories, respectively, in the preintervention (October 2013) and postintervention (April 2015) period. INTERVENTIONS: We tested the effect of a pilot ESHI scheme which was implemented for 1 year. OUTCOME MEASURES: The outcome measures were…