Studies in the Area of Public Health Reported from Harvard University (Socioeconomic and geographic variation in coverage of health insurance across India): Health and Medicine – Public Health

2023 JUL 24 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Research findings on public health are discussed in a new report. According to news reporting originating from New Delhi, India, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “IntroductionIn India, regular monitoring of health insurance at district levels (the most essential administrative unit) is important for its effective uptake to contain the high out of pocket health expenditures. Given that the last individual data on health insurance coverage at district levels in India was in 2016, we update the evidence using the latest round of the National Family Health Survey conducted in 2019-2021.MethodsWe use the unit records of households from the latest round (2021) of the nationally representative National Family Health Survey to calculate the weighted percentage (and 95% CI) of households with at least one member covered by any form of health insurance and its types across socio-economic characteristics and geographies of India.”

The news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Harvard University: “Further, we used a random intercept logistic regression to measure the variation in coverage across communities, district and state. Such household level study of coverage is helpful as it represents awareness and outreach for at least one member, which can percolate easily to the entire household with further interventions. ResultsWe found that only 2/5th of households in India had insurance coverage for at least one of its members, with vast geographic variation emphasizing need for aggressive expansion. About 15.5% were covered by national schemes, 47.1% by state health scheme, 13.2% by employer provided health insurance, 3.3% had purchased health insurance privately and 25.6% were covered by other health insurance schemes (not covered above). About 30.5% of the total variation in coverage was attributable to state, 2.7% to districts and 9.5% to clusters. Household size, gender, marital status and education of household head show weak gradient for coverage under ‘any’ insurance. DiscussionDespite substantial increase in population eligible for state sponsored health insurance and rise in private health insurance companies, nearly 60% of families do not have a single person covered under any health insurance scheme.”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “Further, the existing coverage is fragmented, with significant rural/urban and geographic variation within districts. It is essential to consider these disparities and adopt rigorous place-based interventions for improving health insurance coverage.”

For more information on this research see: Socioeconomic and geographic variation in coverage of health insurance across India. Frontiers in Public Health, 2023,11. (Frontiers in Public Health - http://journal.frontiersin.org/journal/public-health). The publisher for Frontiers in Public Health is Frontiers Media S.A.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2023.1160088.

Our news editors report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Mayanka Ambade, Laxmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Harvard University, India Office, New Delhi, India. Additional authors for this research include Sunil Rajpal, Rockli Kim, S. V. Subramanian.

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