Health Economics Research Unit Researchers Yield New Data on Equity in Health (Examining inequalities in spatial access to national health insurance fund contracted facilities in Kenya): Health and Medicine – Equity in Health

Health & Medicine Business Daily

2024 MAY 06 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health & Medicine Business Daily -- Investigators publish new report on equity in health. According to news originating from the Health Economics Research Unit by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “Kenya aims to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) by 2030 and has selected the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) as the ‘vehicle’ to drive the UHC agenda. While there is some progress in moving the country towards UHC, the availability and accessibility to NHIF-contracted facilities may be a barrier to equitable access to care.”

Financial supporters for this research include Wellcome Trust.

The news reporters obtained a quote from the research from Health Economics Research Unit: “We estimated the spatial access to NHIF-contracted facilities in Kenya to provide information to advance the UHC agenda in Kenya. We merged NHIF-contracted facility data to the geocoded inventory of health facilities in Kenya to assign facility geospatial locations. We combined this database with covariates data including road network, elevation, land use, and travel barriers. We estimated the proportion of the population living within 60- and 120-minute travel time to an NHIF-contracted facility at a 1-x1-kilometer spatial resolution nationally and at county levels using the WHO AccessMod tool. We included a total of 3,858 NHIF-contracted facilities. Nationally, 81.4% and 89.6% of the population lived within 60- and 120-minute travel time to an NHIF-contracted facility respectively. At the county level, the proportion of the population living within 1-hour of travel time to an NHIF-contracted facility ranged from as low as 28.1% in Wajir county to 100% in Nyamira and Kisii counties. Overall, only four counties (Kiambu, Kisii, Nairobi and Nyamira) had met the target of having 100% of their population living within 1-hour (60 min) travel time to an NHIF-contracted facility. On average, it takes 209, 210 and 216 min to travel to an NHIF-contracted facility, outpatient and inpatient facilities respectively. At the county level, travel time to an NHIF-contracted facility ranged from 10 min in Vihiga County to 333 min in Garissa.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Our study offers evidence of the spatial access estimates to NHIF-contracted facilities in Kenya that can inform contracting decisions by the social health insurer, especially focussing on marginalised counties where more facilities need to be contracted. Besides, this evidence will be crucial as the country gears towards accelerating progress towards achieving UHC using social health insurance as the strategy to drive the UHC agenda in Kenya.”

For more information on this research see: Examining inequalities in spatial access to national health insurance fund contracted facilities in Kenya. International Journal for Equity in Health, 2024,23(1):1-10. (International Journal for Equity in Health - http://www.equityhealthj.com/). The publisher for International Journal for Equity in Health is BMC.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s12939-024-02171-x.

Our news journalists report that more information may be obtained by contacting Jacob Kazungu, Health Economics Research Unit, KEMRI Wellcome Trust Research Programme. Additional authors for this research include Angela K. Moturi, Samson Kuhora, Julia Ouko, Matthew Quaife, Justice Nonvignon, Edwine Barasa.