Can health financing programmes reduce food insecurity in a developing country?

Title
Can health financing programmes reduce food insecurity in a developing country?
Author(s)
Kofinti, Raymond Elikplim
Koomson, Isaac
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2929-4992
Email: ikoomso2@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:ikoomso2
Baako-Amponsah, Josephine
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Springer New York LLC
Place of publication
United States of America
DOI
10.1007/s10754-024-09380-5
UNE publication id
une:1959.11/61546
Abstract

Despite the devastating effects of out-of-pocket healthcare expenditures on households' financial outlays, which potentially stiffe household resources needed for food consumption, the health financing program-food insecurity nexus is yet to receive much needed attention in the literature. This study makes a significant contribution by investigating the effect of health financing program, conceptualised as membership of a National Health Insurance Scheme, on household food insecurity using the food insecurity experience scale (FIES) and several quasi-experimental methods. Using data from the seventh round of the Ghana Living Standards Survey, our endogeneity-corrected results indicate that membership of a health financing program can contribute to reduction in household food insecurity. The results are robust to alternative conceptualisations of food insecurity and different quasi-experimental methods. The effect of health financing programme membership on food insecurity is more pronounced among urban and female-headed households. Our findings further point to household savings as an important channel through which membership of health financing program reduces food insecurity.

Link
Citation
International Journal of Health Economics and Management
ISSN
2199-9031
2199-9023

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