Health conditions, payments, proximity, and opportunity costs: Examining delays in seeking inpatient and outpatient care in the Philippines.

Like other developing countries, the Philippines commits to achieving universal health coverage. To identify the factors - including health care needs, financial and physical access, and opportunity costs - associated with delays in seeking outpatient (OP) and inpatient (IP) care among household members with illness, injury or advised by a doctor, this paper estimates Cox and Weibull proportional hazard models using a nationally-representative sample of households surveyed in 2011, when the Philippine government just started implementing major health reforms. Our results indicate that the delays in seeking OP care tend to be shorter for the very young (5 years old or below), the elderly (65 years old or above), and those with prior poor health.

Do piped water and flush toilets prevent child diarrhea in rural Philippines?

Similar to other developing countries, diarrhea in the Philippines continues to be among the top causes of child mortality and morbidity. In pursuit of its Millennium Development Goals, the Philippine government commits to reduce child deaths and provide water and sanitation services to more rural households by 2015. Applying propensity score matching on the 1993, 1998, 2003, and 2008 rounds of the National Demographic and Health Survey to estimate the average treatment effect on the treated, it is found that the incidence of diarrhea among under-5 children is lower by as much as 4.