The Distribution of Household Health Expenditure in Nigeria: Implications for Health Care Reform K.O. Osungbade, Olanrewaju Olaniyan and Saheed O. Olayiwola [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] ABSTRACT Health systems deliver preventive and curative health services which make large impacts on peoples’ health. Access to these services can lead to individuals spending substantial proportions of their available income and pushed them into poverty. Due to the negative impacts households forgo health services and suffer ill health. This study examined the level and distribution of household health care out of pocket expenditures in rural and urban areas in Nigeria. The results show that catastrophic health expenditure affects high percentage of people in Nigeria as large proportion of people spends significant proportion of their non-food expenditure on health care. It also shows that there is high inequality in the distribution of out of pocket expenditure for health care as more people in the rural areas are responsible for their medical bills. The study concluded that Nigerian government needs to take restructuring of health expenses as priority in her health care reform programme to finds a sustainable health care financing that will reduce the burden of high out–of-pocket health expenditure and health spending inequality. 1 I INTRODUCTION Health systems deliver preventive and curative health services which make large impacts on peoples’ health. However, access to these services can lead to individuals spending substantial proportions of their available income and pushed some households into poverty. Because of these negative impacts some households forgo health services and suffer ill health. Health care financing is a collection of funds from both public and private sources including donor agencies to pay for services from health care providers. The manner of financing a health system affects the performance, its functions and the achievement of its goals. The structure of health financing in Nigeria is made up of public-private mix. The public source comprises public expenditures on health sector while private financing comprises households and firms’ out-of-pocket expenditures on health, private health insurance, donor agencies or developments partners’ expenditures on health and health expenditures by departments of private firms. Petu and Soyibo (2006) observed that the inadequate level of health spending is a reflection of the basic arithmetic of poverty. Hence, the poverty level in Nigeria being between 60% and 70% of the population may account for the low level of health spending in Nigeria. In 2005, total health expenditure (THE) in Nigeria was estimated to be about N976.69 billion out of which a total of about N656.55 billion (67%) was from households. This scenario is typical of many developing countries in which direct household spending on health care account for the single largest component of household spending after food expenditures. With this type of situation there is a chance of having catastrophic out-of-pocket payment when out of pocket expenditures (OOP) accounted for about 65% of total payment of health expenditures (Petu and Soyibo, 2006). Health sector reform was introduced during Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) implemented in the 1980s as a result of debt crisis in Nigeria. The economic crisis was evident in the reduced financial abilities of government to provide social services such as health and education. The reform includes changing of health financing strategies and reform of public sector organization and procedures. Governments in most developing countries are facing increasing pressure to improve the financial sustainability of their health programmes as international donors have been reducing their presence in many developing countries as a result of the downturn in the world economy among others. For example the contribution of Development Partners to health care financing in Nigeria was estimated as N27.87billion (4% of THE) in 2003 and increased by 29% to N36.04billion (4.6% of THE) in 2004. But it increased 2 by just 1% to N36.30billion (4% of THE) in 2005. Therefore in designing and implementing policies that affect the cost of health care for households, more needs to be known about the current structure and financing of the health economy. How much are households currently spending for health care? What types of services are being utilized? Do the health care utilization and expenditure patterns of rural households differ from those of urban households? What percentages of household out-of-pocket funds are spent on private providers, either traditional or modern? This study examined different types of health services utilized by individuals and the level and distribution of household health care out of pocket expenditures in rural and urban areas in Nigeria. In the next section, we review literature on the distribution of health payments and catastrophic expenditure. Section three examined methodology while section four contains presentation of results. Section five is pre-occupied with discussion of results and section six contains conclusion and policy implications of our results on future efforts to design and implement health care financing reform in Nigeria. II REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE Elgazzar et.al (2010) observed that out-of-pocket spending on health care has become a policy concern for three reasons: first, households may be pushed into poverty as a result of paying directly for health services; secondly, households facing these health expenses may cut back on other essential household spending such as food and clothing and thirdly, households may choose to forgo necessary health care services rather than face the steep financial consequences thereby creating a vicious cycle of ill health, disability, and poverty. Health policy makers have long been concerned with protecting people from the possibility that ill health will lead to catastrophic financial payments and subsequent impoverishment. This has motivated several examination of the role of households in health care financing in many countries in recent years using National Health Accounts (NHA) analysis that provides estimates of the sources and uses of funds in the health sector. Many of these studies had established that households is greater than previously thought even in countries where health care services are either free or nominally priced (Berman, 1987). For example estimates of the proportion of out of pocket spending in Morocco indicated that as much as 41 percent of health care expenditures came from households 74 percent in Burkina Faso (Saurerborn et al. 1995); 55 percent in Egypt (Berman 1997), 67.2 percent in Nigeria as at 2005 (Soyibo et.al, 2009) and nearly half of all health financing in Middle East and North American Countries comes from private household spending (Elgazzar et.al, 2010). This predominant of household out of pocket health expenditure in health care 3 funding suggests that socio-economic inequities may exist in health status and the use of health care services which may creates adverse consequences of ill health. The burden of out-of-pocket payments on welfare in many countries is related to the cycle of ill health and economic hardship. Most households that incur high out-of-pocket payments are usually vulnerable to being plunged into cycle of poverty. These households can be defined as those that pay greater than an internationally-recognized threshold as a proportion of total household expenditure which varies between 5 percent and 25 percent of total expenditure, or 15 percent and 40 percent of non-food expenditure (Elgazar et.al, 2010). Several countries have examined the consequences of paying for health care on households and the accompanying adverse consequences of ill health have prompted them to expand health insurance coverage (Elgazar et.al, 2010). The endogenous nature of insurance coverage also makes variations in health insurance coverage inadequate to account for differences in the incidence of catastrophic health spending. However, the effect on financial burdens can vary depending on how well systems work for excluding the poorest households from having to pay fees at the point-of-use. A deeper consideration of the Nigeria situation reflects that household’s health expenditures range between 60% and 75% from 1998 to 2005 while public health expenditures on health are between 15% and 26% as shown in Table 1 (appendix I). Donor agencies and development partners financing are between 4% and 16% while financing of other departments of private firms stay around 1% for the whole period while health insurance is mainly from private health insurance and constitute about 2.4% of total health care financing from 2003-2005. This shows household incurred higher proportion in the distribution of health expenditure in Nigeria. And it is an indication of high financial burden on household due to health expenditure in Nigeria and probable incidence of catastrophic health expenditure. Studies on the examination of the level and distribution of household health expenditures between curative and reproductive health care and between rural areas and urban areas are scanty in developing countries (Parker 1986; Berman et al. 1987; Saurerborn et al. 1996). Available studies focus only on the public sector despite the fact that policy decisions based only on public expenditure data can have severe long-term consequences. Since as much as 40-80 percent of total health expenditures may be excluded from such an analysis in many developing countries, the government’s ability to affect health practices and expenditure patterns will be severely 4 limited (Newbrander et al. 1994). Comparing reproductive health and curative health in Nigeria; the 2008 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS) shows that 25.3% of the births were attended to by midwives, 9.1% by doctors and 19.3% of the women were not attended to by anyone; possibly because there was no prenatal care services available or inadequate financing may have deterred the delivery of services. Figure 1 in appendix II shows the percentage of pregnant women that received prenatal care in Nigeria form 1990 to 2008. The figure shows that about 63% of pregnant women received antennal care in Nigeria in 1999 and this decline to about 57% in 2008. Factors identified as a problem in seeking medical care during pregnancy include getting permission to go for treatment, getting money for treatment; distance to health facility, transport cost, not wanting to go alone, concern there may not be a female provider or any health provider and unavailability of drugs. Malaria was the only curative illness reported in the 2008 NDHS report. Malaria was reported to accounts for nearly 110 million clinically diagnosed cases per year, 60 percent of outpatient visits, and 30 percent hospitalizations. Also an estimated 300,000 children die of malaria each year. It is also believed to contribute up to 11 percent maternal mortality, 25 percent infant mortality, and 30 percent under-five mortality. In addition to the direct health impact of malaria, there are also severe social and economic burdens on communities and the country as a whole, with about 132 billion Naira lost to malaria annually in the form of treatment costs, prevention, loss of work time, etc. (NPC and ICF Macro, 2009). The use of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) or long-lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) was the main method of malaria prevention employed in Nigeria. The 2008 NDHS results indicate that 17 percent of households in Nigeria own a mosquito net (treated or untreated), and 8 percent of households own more than one mosquito net. Sixteen percent of households own at least one ever-treated mosquito net, and 7 percent own more than one ever treated mosquito net. By residence, more rural households (19 percent) than urban households (14 percent) own at least one mosquito net. The percentage of households that own any mosquito net in the Northern zones ranges from 16 percent to 28 percent, while in the Southern zones, net ownership ranges from 11 percent to 17 percent. However, ownership of ITNs is higher among households in the Southern zones. Furthermore, ownership of mosquito nets and ever-treated nets decreases with increasing wealth quintile whereas ownership of ITNs increases with wealth quintile. Concern over health care payments is that households do not have to spend a specific percentage of their income on health care payments above a threshold classified as catastrophic. The 5 distribution of health expenditure between government payment and household out-of-pocket payment in Nigeria shows a high percentage of household out-of-pocket payment which may absorbs a larger share of a poor household’s income and thereby leads to reduction in consumption of other essential goods and financial impoverishment. This may lead to a decline in the living standards of the households involved and further drive households into poverty. In several countries more than 1% of all households spent half or more of their non-food expenditure on health care. The poverty impact of this can be measured by the change in the poverty head count (i.e. the proportion of the population in poverty), or the change in the poverty gap (i.e. the average shortfall from the poverty line) induced by health care payments. Reform in health care is part of a wider process of social and political restructuring in many countries. In many countries, health care reforms are part of an overall social transformation and not just finetuning an isolated sector. Countries that have a greater reliance on out-of pocket health care expenditure tend also to have a higher proportion of households with catastrophic expenditures which pushes many into poverty and impoverishment. The dominant of out-of-pocket payments in health care expenditure in Nigeria and its impacts on household welfare required that health care financing reforms should moved more to risk-pooling financing system. III METHODOLOGY DATA REQUIREMENT AND ESTIMATION PROCEDURE Economic theory suggests that financial protection through public or private health insurance substantially reduces the amount that people pay directly for medical care but the burden of outof-pocket spending can still create barriers to health care access and use. Therefore households that have difficulties paying medical bills may delay or forgo needed health care (Hoffman et al., 2005 in Banthin et al., 2008). Contrary to publicly-funded care, out-of-pocket payments rely on the ability to pay. If the financing of health care is unevenly distributed that it becomes more dependent on out-of-pocket payments, its burden is, in theory, shifted towards those who use services more, and possibly from high to low income earners, where health care needs are higher. The burden of out-of-pocket health spending can be measured either by its share of total household income or its share of total household consumption. Persons who are older or with lower incomes tend to have greater levels of illness and are more likely to need health care, so it is important to determine whether the distribution of out-of-pocket spending varies across the population. The data for the study was extracted from 2010 Nigerian Living Standard Survey (NLSS). The 2010 NLSS covered data on demography, health and fertility behaviour, education and 6 skills/training, housing and housing condition, social capital, agriculture, household income, consumption and expenditure. It gives an account of social and some economic factors of households across the nation, and provides information based on gender. The survey covered all 36 States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). The overall concern of the study was to generate detailed, multi-sector and policy relevant data through welfare and expenditure approach. Descriptive analysis is employ to understand the distribution of usage of health facilities for reproductive and curative health services and the level and distribution of health expenditures among different population groups in Nigeria. Household non-food expenditure is a proxy measure of household’s capacity to pay for reproductive and curative health care services. The share of health care expenditure in non-food expenditure (Zj) is derived as: Zj = Hexp / NFexp*100 (1) Where Zj is the share of health expenditure in non-food expenditure, Hexp is the average household monthly expenditure on health; NFexp is the average household monthly non-food expenditure. Health expenditure is catastrophic if a household’s health expenditure exceeds 40% of income remaining after subsistence needs have been met. Lorenz curve was used to show the inequality in household out-of-pocket health expenditures in Nigeria, by geographical zones, by sector and by household head. IV PRESENTATION OF THE RESULTS Findings from the empirical analysis are presented in this section. Table 1 shows the summary statistics of the variables employed in the analysis for estimation. The table shows that about 22% of the people lives in urban areas while about 77% lives in rural areas. An average of 117 individuals reported to have been ill for an average of five days in both rural and urban areas. The result further shows that about 19% of people who reported ill went for consultation with a consultation fees ranges between N0 and N19, 000. Also about 19% of the respondent reported to have been admitted to the hospitals or health centre with an average admission fee of about N2, 369. The average out of pocket expenditure is about N113 with a maximum value of N180, 208. On reproductive health care; about 15% of the respondents have attended antenatal care with average antenatal fee of about N467.60k. The average non-food expenditure was about N2, 621.68k and average income was about N29, 922.5k while the average health expenditure was 7 about N3, 386. The average share of health expenditure in non-food expenditure was about N229 and those who spend about 40% of their non-food expenditure on health were about 99%. This shows that the proportion of people spending significant amount of their non-food expenditure on health were high in Nigeria and the percentage spent were also high that it can put many into impoverishment. Table 1: Summary Statistics of the Variables used for Estimation Variables Obs Mean Std. Dev. Urban Rural People Ill Days Ill Consultation CONSULTFEES Admission ADMINFEES PurchMed OOP ANTENATAL ANTEFEES NONFDEXP INCOME HEXPD HXPNFDXP FOURTYNFDX 909342 909342 908693 132221 908693 909342 908693 909342 908693 909342 8959 909342 909342 899358 909342 907955 909342 0.2285037 0.7714963 1.170097 4.831577 1.900285 435.1488 1.987331 2369.697 1.784489 113.651 1.53276 467.5879 2621.679 29922.47 3386.084 229.0826 0.9999648 0.419869 0.419869 0.4441597 3.472082 0.2996193 295.2848 0.1118403 739.197 0.4111763 608.1602 0.4989535 55.36659 22467.48 818264.2 1076.842 2125.427 0.005932 Min Max 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 435.1488 0.0051322 0 1 1 4 14 2 19000 2 120000 2 180208 2 30000 9110921 1.00e+08 183480.4 338608.4 1 Health expenditure is catastrophic if a household’s health expenditure exceeds 40% of remaining income after food expenditure has been met. The results in table 2 shows that about 77.2% of rural resident suffered catastrophic health expenditure while about 29.8% of urban resident has catastrophic health expenditure. This shows that more than proportionate percentage of people in both rural and urban areas in Nigeria have problem of catastrophic health expenditure. The implication of this is that the uneven distribution of health expenditure towards out-of-pocket payment put many into poverty and hindered their access to adequate health care. Table 2: Percentage of People with catastrophic Health Expenditure Sector Total Urban % Rural % 84.4 32 No 5 15.6 27 Yes 207,783 22.9 701,527 77.1 909,310 Total 207,788 701,554 909,342 8 DISTRIBUTION OF HOUSEHOLD OUT OF POCKET HEALTH EXPENDITURE The distribution of household out-of-pocket health expenditure is examined by geo-political zone, sector and household head. From table 3, Both South-East and South-South have the highest mean health expenditure with N56, 381.24 and N41, 230.62 while North Central and South West have the lowest mean health expenditure with N22, 024.01 and N22, 392.7 respectively. However, North East and North West have N25, 027.57 and N27, 813.04 as average health expenditure. This analysis shows that health expenditure is high in Southern Nigeria compare to Northern Nigeria. It means that out-of-pocket health payment is unevenly distributed in Nigeria with South-East and South–South having the highest out-of-pocket health payment and North- Central and South-West with the lowest out-of-pocket health payment. Table 3: Mean Distribution of Out-of-Pocket Health Expenditure by Geo-Political Zone Geo-Political Zones Out-of-Pocket Health Expenditure (NMean) 22,024.01 North Central 25, 027.57 North East 27, 813.04 North West 56, 381.24 South East 41, 230.62 South South 22, 392.7 South West The distribution of household out-pocket health expenditure by sector in table 4 shows that rural area have the highest average out-of-pocket health expenditure with N32, 047.58 while the average out-of-pocket health expenditure in urban area is N29, 223.22. This shows that individuals in rural area spend more on average on health care services compared to their counterpart in urban area. Since income of rural inhabitants are lower than their urban counterpart, it means that rural inhabitants are more likely to be put into poverty by high health spending and also suffer more from ill health. Table 4: Mean Distribution of Out-of-Pocket Health Expenditure by Sector Sectors Health Expenditure (NMean) 29, 223.22 Urban 32, 047.58 Rural Table 5 shows the distribution of health expenditure by household head. It shows that a male headed household on the average spend relatively more on health care services than female headed households. The average health expenditure in a male headed household is around N31, 726.48 and N31, 211.54 in a female headed household. 9 Table 5: Mean Distribution of Out-of-Pocket Health Expenditure by Household Head Household Head Health Expenditure (NMean) 31, 726.48 Male 31, 211.54 Female 0 .2 .4 .6 .8 1 Figure 2: Lorenz Curve of Inequality in Health Expenditure in Nigeria 0 .2 .4 .6 Lorenz (inhlthx) 10 .8 equality 1 0 5000 10000 15000 Figure 3: Lorenz Curve of Inequality in Health Expenditure in Nigeria by Zone 0 .2 .4 .6 Cumulative population proportion .8 1 0 5000 10000 15000 Fig 4: Lorenz Curve Inequality in Health Expenditure in Nigeria by Sector 0 .2 .4 .6 Cumulative population proportion 11 .8 1 0 5000 10000 15000 Fig 5: Lorenz Curve of Inequality in Health Expenditure in Nigeria by Household Head .2 .4 .6 .8 Cumulative population proportion headmale==0 1 headmale==1 Figures 2-5 are Lorenz curves to further shows the inequality in the distribution of household out-of-pocket health expenditures. Figure 2 shows Lorenz curve for the distribution of household out-of-pocket health expenditures in Nigeria. Usually the closer the Lorenz curve to the 45degree line, the more equal the distribution of health expenditure among the population; the greater the degree of inequality, the greater the bend and the closer the Lorenz curve to the bottom horizontal axis. As can be seen from figure 2, Nigeria has a much more unequal distribution of household out-of-pocket health expenditure among the total population. Figures 35 also reveals this based on geographical zone, sector and household head, the inequality in household out-of-pocket health expenditure is also high. This implication of this is that large proportion of people in Nigeria are likely to be more impoverished due to high percentage of their non-food expenditure spent on health care services. Therefore, health sector reform in Nigeria needs to not only address the unequal distribution of health payments between government and household but must also address closing the gap of out-of-pocket health expenditure between rural and urban people and between the geo-political zones in Nigeria. 12 V DISCUSSION OF RESULTS The results of the empirical analysis show myriads of situations. The results show that more than 70% of rural residence self-financed their medical expenses while just about 30% of urban residences were responsible for their medical expenses. Federal or state government was responsible for the medical expenses of the large proportion of the urban compare to the rural people. This shows inequality in health financing among rural and urban residence. Both rural resident and urban resident suffered from catastrophic health expenditure as large proportions of them have their health expenditure exceeding 40% of their income remaining after food expenditure have been met. The Lorenz curves further shows a high degree of inequality in outof-pocket health expenses in Nigeria, between geographical zones and between rural and urban residents. The results reflect that more than proportionate Nigerians suffered from catastrophic health expenditure and this may account among others for the high level of poverty in Nigeria. VI CONCLUSION AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS The results of the analysis suggest that catastrophic health expenditure is a serious issue in Nigeria as large proportion of people spends significant proportion of their non-food expenditure on health care. It also suggests that there is inequality in the distribution of out of pocket expenditure for health care as more people in the rural areas are responsible for their medical bills. We concluded that Nigerian government needs to take restructuring of health expenses as priority in her health care reform programme. Finding a sustainable health financing means is sine-qua-non for any meaningful reform to take place in the health care sector. Since health insurance appears to be receiving an appreciable acceptance; government may further explored this in financing health care in Nigeria to further reduce the burden of high out –of–pocket health expenditure and health spending inequality. 13 References Berman, P. (1987). Treatment Use and Expenditure on Curative Care in Rural Indonesia. Health Policy and Planning 2 (4): 289-300. Elgazzar Heba; Firas Raad; Chokri Arfa; Awad Mataria; Nisreen Salti; Jad Chaaban; Djavaad Salehi-Isfahani; Sanaz Fesharak and Mehdi Majbouri (2010) Who Pays? Out-of-Pocket Health Spending and Equity Implications in the Middle East and North Africa. HNP Discussion Paper. IBRD/The World Bank 1818 H Street, NW Washington, DC 20433. Hosmer D.W, and S. Lemeshow (2000) Applied logistic regression. New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc.; 2000. Hoffman C. and J.H. May and P.J. Cunningham (2005) Medical Debt and Access to Health Care Washington: Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, September 2005; Hotchkiss David R., Amparo Gordillo, Zine Eddine el Idriss and Jilali Hazim (1998) Household Health Expenditures in Morroco: Implications for Health Care Reform. MEASURE Evaluation, Carolina Population Centre, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill National Population Commission (NPC,Nigeria) and ICF Macro.(2009). Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey,2008. Abuja,Nigeria: National Population Commission (NPC,Nigeria) and ICF Macro. Newbrander, W., G. Carrin, and D. Le Touze. (1994). Developing Countries’ Health Expenditure Information: What Exists and What is Needed? Health Policy and Planning 9(4): pp. 396-408. Parker, R.L. (1986). Health Care Expenditures in a Rural Indian Community. Social Science and Medicine 22(1), pp. 23-27. Petu Amos and Adedoyin Soyibo (2006) Health Care Financing in Nigeria in Nigerian Health Review 2006. 2006 Health Reform Foundation of Nigeria (HERFON). Saurerborn, R., A. Nougtara, M. Hien, and H.J. Diesfeld. (1995). Seasonal Variations of Household Cost of Illness in Burkina Faso. Social Science and Medicine 43 (3): 281-290. Soyibo, A., Olaniyan O.A. & A. O. Lawanson (2009), National Health Accounts of Nigeria, 2003 – 2005 Incorporating Sub-National Health Accounts of States Vol. 1: Main Report Submitted to Federal Ministry of Health, Abuja December 2009. Tin Tin Su, Bocar Kouyaté, & Steffen Flessa (2006) Catastrophic Household Expenditure for Health Care in a Low Income Society: a study from Nouna District, Burkina Faso. Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2006; 84:21-27. 14 APPENDIX I Table I: Structure of Health Care Financing in Nigeria: 1998-2005 (NM) Years Public Health Expenditure Out-of-Pocket Payments Health Insurance Households Socia % Firms % % l All other Private Means Private % Firms % Donor Agencies/Develo pments Partners % Total % 1998 23,502.13 14.9 108720.00 69.3 2808.95 1.8 - - - - 20,551.00 13.1 1,499.09 0.9 157081.10 1999 2000 29,882.85 40,391.25 16.6 18.8 118,782.39 129,872.07 66.0 60.4 4,283.81 7,238.05 2.4 3.4 - - - - 24,911.96 34,899.04 13.8 16.2 2,030.15 2,808.72 1.1 1.3 179,891.16 215,209.13 2001 69,765.96 27.2 157,601.66 61.5 4.5 - - - - 14,269.05 5.6 3,190.09 1.3 256,283.42 2002 60,211.87 21.6 183,598.37 65.9 4.9 - - - - 17,104.00 6.1 3,981.52 1.4 278,732.15 2003 123,681.78 18.7 489,464.57 74.0 11,456.6 6 13,836.3 9 1,504.07 0.2 - - 15,655.5 2.4 27,872.16 4.2 3,484.03 0.5 661,662.16 2004 208,207.86 26.4 518,070.34 65.7 1,591.97 0.2 - - 18,788.9 2.4 36,037.98 4.6 6,026.79 0.8 788,723.91 2005 254,174.42 26.0 656,115.84 67.2 2,016.17 0.2 - - 21,335.4 2.2 36,296.70 3.7 6,749.09 0.7 976,687.60 Source: Soyibo et.al, 2009. APPENDIX II Source: NPC, 2009 15
© Copyright 2026 Paperzz