From November 15th to December 3rd 2021, seven research team members from Friedrich-Alexander-University (FAU) and the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health (HIGH) spent three highly productive weeks in Pakistan. The research team members of Khyber Medical University (KMU) were excellent hosts and, working together, the entire team made good progress on the research.
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Newly published in the Geneva Risk and Insurance Review: Does free hospitalization insurance change health care consumption of the poor? Short-term evidence from Pakistan
We are excited to see our paper published – online for now, but hopefully soon in the special issues “Risk Considerations and Insurance in Developing Countries”. In the paper, Prof. Dr. Andreas Landmann and Dr. Simona Helmsmüller study the effect of free hospitalization insurance on inpatient care consumption patterns. This was part of Phase 1 of the ongoing Social Health Protection Initiative (SHPI), which aimed at reducing financial barriers and increasing access of the poor to health services in selected districts of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province and the Gilgit Baltistan (GB) area through provision of free insurance coverage for inpatient health services (IPD). The program, which was launched in December 2015 in four pilot districts and then extended province-wide, covers the poorest 21% of households in the area through the delivery of insurance cards at fully subsidized rates.
Continue readingBackground: the Social Health Protection Initiative
What is SHPI?
In Pakistan, where more than 48 million people live under the national poverty line, health-related expenditures are a major cause of economic shock for poor families. More than half of all the money spent on health comes out of patients’ own pockets. In the absence of social health protection schemes which make health services affordable, many of Pakistan’s poorest citizens simply do not seek care when they fall ill.
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