Catastrophic health-care payments and multidimensional poverty: Are they related?

The negative impact of health-related out-of-pocket (OOP) payments is a well-known problem in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Cross-sectional analysis reveals that households use different coping mechanisms to mitigate or overcome the effect of OOP payments, but little is known from a longitudinal perspective. We explore this link using panel data for Colombia, Mexico, India, Malawi, Nigeria, Uganda, and Tanzania.

Catastrophic expenditure due to out-of-pocket health payments and its determinants in Colombian households.

Background: Out-of-pocket expenditure to pay for health services could result in financial catastrophe. The purpose of this study was to identify the incidence and determinants of catastrophic out-of-pocket payments for healthcare in Colombia. The underlying hypotheses are that low-income and non-insured population in Colombia, and households living in isolated and high level of rurality regions, are more likely to incur catastrophic healthcare expenses.

Determining factors of catastrophic health spending in Bogota, Colombia.

This study tests whether the low-income population in Bogota not insured under the General Social Security Health System is able to economically handle unexpected health problems or not. It used data from the Health Services Use and Expenditure Study conducted in Colombia in 2001, for which each household recorded its monthly out-of-pocket health expenditure during the year and the household income was measured as the sum of each member's contribution to the household. Payment capacity or available income and catastrophic health spending were based on the latest methodology proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2005.