Kamuzu University of Health Sciences Reports Findings in Health and Medicine (Uptake of health insurance in Malawi in 2019-2020: evidence from the multiple indicator cluster survey): Health and Medicine

2024 FEB 20 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Education Daily Report -- New research on Health and Medicine is the subject of a report. According to news reporting from Lilongwe, Malawi, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “Although countries in sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) show progress in implementing various forms of health insurance, there is a dearth of information regarding health insurance in settings like Malawi. Therefore, we conducted this study to determine the uptake of health insurance and describe some of the factors associated with the prevailing uptake of health insurance in Malawi using the 2019-2020 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS).”

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from the Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, “this was a secondary analysis of the 2019-2020 MICS data. Data were analysed using frequencies and weighted percentages in Stata v.17. Furthermore, since the number of persons with health insurance is very small, we were unable to perform multivariate analysis. a total of 205 (1%) of the 31259 had health insurance in Malawi in 2019-2020. Of the 205 individuals who owned health insurance, 118 (47%) had health insurance through their employers while 39 (16%) had health insurance through mutual health organizations or community-based. Men had a higher uptake of health insurance than women. The residents from urban areas were more likely to have health insurance than those in rural areas. Persons with media exposure were more likely to own health insurance as compared to their counterparts. There was an increasing trend in the uptake of health insurance by wealth of the individual with the poorest being less likely to have health insurance compared to the richest. The persons with no education were least likely to have health insurance while those with tertiary education were most likely to have health insurance. the uptake of health insurance in Malawi was extremely low.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “In order to increase the uptake of health insurance, there is a need to increase insurance coverage amongst those in formal employment, and consider minimizing the geographic, economic, and demographic barriers in accessing the health insurance.”

For more information on this research see: Uptake of health insurance in Malawi in 2019-2020: evidence from the multiple indicator cluster survey. The Pan African Medical Journal, 2023;46:85.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Takondwa Mwase, Kamuzu University of Health Sciences, Dept. of Health Systems and Policy, Health Economics and Policy Unit, Lilongwe, Malawi. Additional authors for this research include Wingston Felix Ng’ambi, Cosmas Zyambo, Farai Chigaru, Agnes Jack Banda and Joseph Mfutso-Bengo.

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)