Primary Submission Category: Health equity
Assessing Socio-economic inequalities in Catastrophic health expenditures after Caeserean section surgery In Cameroon: A decomposition analysis
Authors: Relindis Tapang Aya Suzuki
Presenting Author: Relindis Tapang*
Large inequalities exist in the health sector, especially in developing countries. A key goal of health systems is reducing health inequalities among all population groups for improved health outcomes. A critical component of a functional health system is access to emergency obstetric care including Caesarean section surgical care. There are limited studies assessing socio-economic inequalities and decomposing the inequalities across household characteristics after C-section surgery, and none of these studies is focused on Cameroon. The objective of this study is to examine and decompose socio-economic inequality in catastrophic health expenditures after C-section surgery in Cameroon. Data from 436 respondents were obtained from a primary cross-sectional survey conducted in Cameroon between February to April 2022 using hospital exit interviews for women who delivered through C-section surgery. We defined catastrophic health expenditures as out-of-pocket payments exceeding 10% of total household consumption expenditure. Socio-economic inequalities in catastrophic health expenditure were estimated using the Erreygers concentration curves and indices. We used decomposition analysis to examine the contributions of each factor to the overall socio-economic inequality. Preliminary results show that the Erreygers concentration index of catastrophic health expenditure was negative with a high magnitude of -0.34 indicating inequality is concentrated among the poor. The largest contributors to inequality in catastrophic expenditure were the region of residence (-27%), household head job category (28.34), marital status (11%), and employment status of the woman (9%). The results suggest that inequalities in catastrophic health expenditures are concentrated among the poor population. In addition, the results show that the inequalities are explained by households rather than health system factors.