Willingness to pay for community health insurance in a semi-urban community in Delta State, Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Community health insurance is now seen as a very viable and sustainable pre-payment scheme for individuals in the informal sector, especially those living in rural and semiurban communities in sub-Saharan Africa. This study was conducted to assess the willingness of household heads' to pay premium for community health insurance in a semi-urban community.
Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted among 436 household heads in Oghara community using a semi-structured interviewer administered questionnaire for data collection.
Results: About a third (31.0 %) of the respondents were in the age group 30-39 years while 24.0 %, 22.0 %, 15.0 % and 8.0 % of them were in the age groups 20-29, 40-49, 50-59; and 60 and above years respectively. Slightly above half (53.0 %) of the respondents were females while 47.0 % of them were males. About three quarter (72.7 %) of the respondents were willing to pay premium and the mean amount of money they were willing to pay as premium was N 514.59 (US Dollar 3.22) monthly. Sex, educational status, monthly income and past health expenditure for health care were factors found to influence the mean amount the respondents were willing to pay as premium.
Conclusion: This study brings to the fore a high level willingness to pay premium for community health among household heads. It is therefore imperative that financing arrangements through community health insurance be incrementally scaled-up as a key strategy to achieving sustainable universal health coverage.

Keywords: Willingness to pay, community health insurance, premium