Pallegedara Asankha
Department of Industrial Management, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Wayamba University of Sri Lanka, Kuliyapitiya, 60200, Sri Lanka.
Chair of Development Economics, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, University of Passau, Innstrasse 29, 94032, Passau, Germany.
Int J Health Econ Manag. 2018 Sep;18(3):301-319. doi: 10.1007/s10754-018-9235-2. Epub 2018 Jan 10.
This article examines the effects of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) on households' out-of-pocket health expenditures in Sri Lanka. We explore the disease specific impacts on out-of-pocket health care expenses from chronic NCDs such as heart diseases, hypertension, cancer, diabetics and asthma. We use nationwide cross-sectional household income and expenditure survey 2012/2013 data compiled by the department of census and statistics of Sri Lanka. Employing propensity score matching method to account for selectivity bias, we find that chronic NCD affected households appear to spend significantly higher out-of-pocket health care expenditures and encounter grater economic burden than matched control group despite having universal public health care policy in Sri Lanka. The results also suggest that out-of-pocket expenses on medicines and other pharmaceutical products as well as expenses on medical laboratory tests and other ancillary services are particularly higher for households with chronic NCD patients. The findings underline the importance of protecting households against the financial burden due to NCDs.
本文探讨了慢性非传染性疾病（NCDs）对斯里兰卡家庭自费医疗支出的影响。我们研究了诸如心脏病、高血压、癌症、糖尿病和哮喘等慢性非传染性疾病对自费医疗费用的具体疾病影响。我们使用了斯里兰卡人口普查与统计局汇编的2012/2013年全国性家庭收入与支出调查数据。采用倾向得分匹配方法来解决选择性偏差问题，我们发现，尽管斯里兰卡实行全民公共医疗政策，但患有慢性非传染性疾病的家庭自费医疗支出似乎显著更高，且比匹配的对照组面临更大的经济负担。结果还表明，对于有慢性非传染性疾病患者的家庭，药品和其他医药产品的自费费用以及医学实验室检查和其他辅助服务的费用尤其更高。这些发现凸显了保护家庭免受非传染性疾病造成的经济负担的重要性。
