Measuring equity in disability and healthcare utilization in Afghanistan

Jean-Francois Trani, Cecile Barbou-des-Courieres
2012 Medicine, Conflict and Survival  
This paper analyses equity in health and healthcare utilisation in Afghanistan based on a representative national household survey. Equitable access is a cornerstone of the Afghan health policy. We measured socioeconomic-related equity in access to public health care, using disability-because people with disabilities are poorer and more likely to use health care -and a concentration index (CI) and its decomposition. The socioeconomicrelated equity in healthcare utilisation was measured using a
more » ... robit model and compared with an OLS model providing the horizontal inequity index (HI). We found low rate of healthcare facilities utilisation (25%). Disabled persons are using more healthcare facilities and have higher medical expenses. Disability is more frequently associated with older age, unemployed heads of household and lower education. The CI of disability is 0.0221 indicating a pro-rich distribution of health. This pro-rich effect is higher in small households (CI decreases with size of the household, -0.0048) and safe (0.0059) areas. The CI of healthcare utilisation is -0.0159 indicating a slightly pro-poor distribution of healthcare utilisation but overall, there is no difference in healthcare utilisation by wealth status. Our study does not show major socioeconomic related inequity in disability and healthcare utilisation in Afghanistan. This is due to the extreme and pervasive poverty found in Afghanistan. The absence of inequity in health access is explained by the uniform poverty of the population and the difficulty to access BPHS facilities, despite alarming health indicators.
doi:10.1080/13623699.2012.714651 pmid:23189589 fatcat:ib57c4pbgfdwnfoqtm5vn7w4oq