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Catastrophic health expenditure and its determinants in Kenya slum communities

Overview of attention for article published in International Journal for Equity in Health, May 2015
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  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (72nd percentile)
  • Average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source

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1 policy source
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2 X users

Citations

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125 Dimensions

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309 Mendeley
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Title
Catastrophic health expenditure and its determinants in Kenya slum communities
Published in
International Journal for Equity in Health, May 2015
DOI 10.1186/s12939-015-0168-9
Pubmed ID
Authors

Steven Buigut, Remare Ettarh, Djesika D Amendah

Abstract

In Kenya, where 60 to 80% of the urban residents live in informal settlements (frequently referred to as slums), out-of-pocket (OOP) payments account for more than a third of national health expenditures. However, little is known on the extent to which these OOP payments are associated with personal or household financial catastrophe in the slums. This paper seeks to examine the incidence and determinants of catastrophic health expenditure among urban slum communities in Kenya. We use a unique dataset on informal settlement residents in Kenya and various approaches that relate households OOP payments for healthcare to total expenditures adjusted for subsistence, or income. We classified households whose OOP was in excess of a predefined threshold as facing catastrophic health expenditures (CHE), and identified the determinants of CHE using multivariate logistic regression analysis. The results indicate that the proportion of households facing CHE varies widely between 1.52% and 28.38% depending on the method and the threshold used. A core set of variables were found to be key determinants of CHE. The number of working adults in a household and membership in a social safety net appear to reduce the risk of catastrophic expenditure. Conversely, seeking care in a public or private hospital increases the risk of CHE. This study suggests that a substantial proportion of residents of informal settlements in Kenya face CHE and would likely forgo health care they need but cannot afford. Mechanisms that pool risk and cost (insurance) are needed to protect slum residents from CHE and improve equity in health care access and payment.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 2 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 309 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Bangladesh 1 <1%
Kenya 1 <1%
United Kingdom 1 <1%
Belgium 1 <1%
Nigeria 1 <1%
Cambodia 1 <1%
Unknown 303 98%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 70 23%
Researcher 39 13%
Student > Ph. D. Student 34 11%
Student > Postgraduate 23 7%
Student > Bachelor 16 5%
Other 53 17%
Unknown 74 24%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 70 23%
Economics, Econometrics and Finance 42 14%
Social Sciences 31 10%
Nursing and Health Professions 30 10%
Business, Management and Accounting 13 4%
Other 33 11%
Unknown 90 29%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 08 May 2022.
All research outputs
#6,146,216
of 22,803,211 outputs
Outputs from International Journal for Equity in Health
#960
of 1,899 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#72,271
of 264,461 outputs
Outputs of similar age from International Journal for Equity in Health
#8
of 14 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,803,211 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 72nd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,899 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 11.2. This one is in the 48th percentile – i.e., 48% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 264,461 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 72% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 14 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 42nd percentile – i.e., 42% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.