New Social Science and Medicine Findings from African Population and Health Research Center Reported (Economic valuation of setting up a social health enterprise in urban poor-resource setting in Kenya)

2020 SEP 28 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Investigators publish new report on Health and Medicine - Social Science and Medicine. According to news reporting originating in Nairobi, Kenya, by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “The failure of the market and government to provide quality healthcare services have been the motivation to set up social health enterprise. However, the value for money associated with setting up a social health enterprise in sub-Sahara African countries has been relatively unexplored in the literature.”

Financial support for this research came from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

The news reporters obtained a quote from the research from African Population and Health Research Center, “The study presents the first empirical estimates of the mean willingness-to-pay (WTP) for setting up a social health enterprise that will simultaneously run a health center and provide health insurance scheme in an urban resource-poor setting and explores whether the benefits outweigh the costs. The contingent valuation method is used to estimate the mean WTP for the health insurance scheme proposed by the social health enterprise in Viwandani slum (Nairobi, Kenya). The survey was conducted between June and July 2018 on 300 households. We find that the feasibility of setting up a social health enterprise could be promising with 97 percent of respondents willing to pay about US$ 2 per person per month for a scheme that would provide quality healthcare services. More importantly, setting up the social health enterprise will yield a positive net profit, and investors could expect US$ 1.11 in benefits for each US$ 1 of costs of investment in setting up the social health enterprise.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “We, therefore, conclude that this health policy in this urban resource-poor setting could be a viable solution to reach the neglected urban households in the Kenyan slums.”

For more information on this research see: Economic valuation of setting up a social health enterprise in urban poor-resource setting in Kenya. Social Science & Medicine, 2020;266():113294. Social Science & Medicine can be contacted at: Pergamon-Elsevier Science LTD, the Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, England. (Elsevier - www.elsevier.com; Social Science & Medicine - http://www.journals.elsevier.com/social-science-and-medicine/)

Our news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Hermann Pythagore Pierre Donfouet, African Population and Health Research Center, APHRC Campus, 2nd Floor, Manga Close, Off Kirawa Road, P.O. Box: 10787-00100, Nairobi, Kenya. Additional authors for this research include Shukri F. Mohamed, Peter Otieno, Elvis Wambiya, Martin Kavao Mutua and Goodarz Danaei.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113294. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

The publisher of the journal Social Science & Medicine can be contacted at: Pergamon-Elsevier Science LTD, the Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, England.

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