What contributes to out-of-pocket health expenditure in Cambodia's uncovered population? A distributional and decomposition analysis using survey data.

Introduction: Out-of-pocket health expenditures (OOPE) are an inefficient and inequitable means of health financing. Identifying the factors driving these expenditures is crucial to design effective prepayment schemes. This study uses Cambodia-a country with high OOPE and prevalent informal employment-as a case study to analyse the relative contributions of healthcare, health, and social factors to OOPE and the OOPE budget share (OOPE as a proportion of total annual household expenditure) across different points in their distribution.

Assessing the determinants of out-of-pocket health expenditures among Cambodian households in informal employment using survey data.

Background: As the deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals approaches, financial protection in Cambodia remains inadequate, especially for nonpoor informal workers lacking formal social health protection coverage or access to other prepayment schemes. This exposes them to high out-of-pocket health expenditures (OOPE) and related financial hardship. To better understand the drivers behind these expenditures, our study aims to model their healthcare, health, and social determinants and to assess their relative importance.