Catastrophic and impoverishing effects of out-of-pocket payments for health care in Albania: evidence from Albania Living Standards Measurement Surveys 2002, 2005 and 2008.

The absence of or poorly functioning risk pooling mechanisms and high amounts of out-of-pocket payments for health care expose households to financial risks associated with major illnesses or accidents. The aim of this article is to analyse the extent to which out-of-pocket health spending impoverishes households in Albania. The study augments existing evidence by analysing the dynamics of such payments over different years and the weight that informal payments have in the total out-of-pocket health spending.