Background: The rise of hypertension (HTN) and diabetes mellitus (DM) in Tanzania underscores the importance of self-care practices (SCP) for disease management. Despite the proven effectiveness of SCP, financial barriers in resource-limited rural areas hinder continuous care. Health insurance (HI) emerges as a critical solution to alleviate financial constraints and support SCP.
Methods: This study examined an association between HI and SCP by generalised linear and ordinal logistic regressions, adjusted for sociodemographic factors. Mediation analysis highlighted the role of disease management behaviours (hospital visits and medication adherence) in the association. Data were collected through individual interviews with 909 patients.
Results: Better SCP for HTN and DM were associated with the National Health Insurance Fund (HTN: coefficient=0.571; DM: coefficient=0.567, p<0.001) and the improved Community Health Fund (iCHF) or CHF (HTN: coefficient=0.330; DM: coefficient=0.472, p<0.05), after adjustment for sociodemographic variables. Mediation analysis showed that disease management behaviours partially or fully mediated the relationship between HI and SCP.
Conclusions: Enrolment in HI by patients in rural Tanzania exhibited better disease management behaviours and SCP. Efforts should focus on leveraging the HI schemes to expand their coverage in rural areas, which could benefit patients with non-communicable diseases.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/inthealth/ihae070 | DOI Listing |
JAMA Health Forum
January 2025
Department of Health Systems, Management, and Policy, University of Colorado Cancer Center, Aurora.
Importance: Medicare Advantage (MA) plans are designed to incentivize the use of less expensive drugs through capitated payments, formulary control, and preauthorizations for certain drugs. These conditions may reduce spending on high-cost therapies for conditions such as cancer, a condition that is among the most expensive to treat.
Objective: To determine whether patients insured by MA plans receive less high-cost drugs than those insured by traditional Medicare (TM).
Transl Vis Sci Technol
January 2025
Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA.
Purpose: Uncorrected visual impairment (VI) significantly impacts life quality and exacerbates age-related health issues. Social determinants of health (SDOH) are associated with uncorrected VI, but quantitative evidence is limited. This study investigated the link between SDOH and uncorrected VI among aging adults to identify disparities and improve vision care.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMed Care
February 2025
RAND, Health Care, Santa Monica, CA.
Background: Medicare Bayesian Improved Surname and Geocoding (MBISG), which augments an imperfect race-and-ethnicity administrative variable to estimate probabilities that people would self-identify as being in each of 6 mutually exclusive racial-and-ethnic groups, performs very well for Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (AA&NHPI), Black, Hispanic, and White race-and-ethnicity, somewhat less well for American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN), and much less well for Multiracial race-and-ethnicity.
Objectives: To assess whether temporal inconsistency of self-reported race-and-ethnicity might limit improvements in approaches like MBISG.
Methods: Using the Medicare Health Outcomes Survey (HOS) baseline (2013-2018) and 2-year follow-up data (2015-2020), we evaluate the consistency of self-reported race-and-ethnicity coded 2 ways: the 6 mutually exclusive MBISG categories and individual endorsements of each racial-and-ethnic group.
Healthcare (Basel)
January 2025
Supportive Care Center/Department of Family Medicine, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul 06351, Republic of Korea.
Background: Amputation confers disabilities upon patients and is associated with substantial cardiovascular and metabolic morbidity and mortality. We aimed to compare the incidence of end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) between individuals with amputation and the general population.
Methods: A population-based retrospective cohort study was performed using the Nationwide Health Insurance Service database for the period between 2010 and 2018.
Healthcare (Basel)
January 2025
Division of Ophthalmology, Department of Surgery, UMass Chan-Lahey School of Medicine, Burlington, MA 01805, USA.
: Despite evidence that low vision rehabilitation (LVR) services can improve visual function in patients with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD), many patients are not directed to access these resources. This study was conducted to determine factors associated with LVR referral and to assess the visual outcomes from completed evaluations. : The study comprised a retrospective, cross-sectional analysis of patients with nAMD.
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