Department of Economics, School of Social Science, Mulungushi University, Kabwe, Zambia.
National Authorizing Office of the European Development Fund, Ministry of Finance, Lusaka, Zambia.
BMC Health Serv Res. 2021 Nov 9;21(1):1212. doi: 10.1186/s12913-021-07253-y.
Health insurance is an essential aspect of healthcare. This is because it enables the insured to acquire timely and essential healthcare services, besides offering financial protection from catastrophic treatment costs. This paper seeks to establish gender differentials and determinants of health insurance coverage in Zambia.
The data used in this study was obtained from the 2018 Zambia Demographic and Health Survey. Data were analyzed using STATA 13.0 software and focused on descriptive and Probit regression analyses.
The study reveals that for women and men, age, wealth category, education, and professional occupation are positively associated with health insurance while being self-employed in the agricultural sector negatively influences health insurance coverage for both sexes. Other variables have gender-specific effects. For instance, being in marital union and having a clerical occupation increases the probability of having health insurance for women while being in the services, skilled, and unskilled manual occupations increases the probability of having health insurance for men. Further, residing in rural areas reduces the probability of having health insurance for men.
The study concludes that there are differences in factors that influence health insurance between women and men. Hence, this study highlights the need to enhance health insurance coverage by addressing the different factors that influence health insurance coverage among men and women. These factors include enhancing education, job creation, diversifying insurance schemes, and gender consideration in the design of National Health Insurance Scheme.
健康保险是医疗保健的一个重要方面。这是因为它使被保险人能够获得及时和必要的医疗服务，同时提供从灾难性治疗费用中获得经济保护。本文旨在确定赞比亚健康保险覆盖范围的性别差异和决定因素。
本研究使用的数据来自 2018 年赞比亚人口与健康调查。使用 STATA 13.0 软件进行数据分析，重点进行描述性和 Probit 回归分析。
该研究表明，对于女性和男性而言，年龄、财富类别、教育程度和职业与健康保险呈正相关，而在农业部门自营职业则对两性的健康保险覆盖产生负面影响。其他变量具有性别特定的影响。例如，已婚和从事文书工作会增加女性获得健康保险的可能性，而从事服务业、技术和非技术体力劳动职业则会增加男性获得健康保险的可能性。此外，居住在农村地区会降低男性获得健康保险的可能性。
本研究得出的结论是，影响女性和男性健康保险的因素存在差异。因此，本研究强调需要通过解决影响男女健康保险覆盖范围的不同因素来增强健康保险覆盖范围。这些因素包括加强教育、创造就业机会、多样化保险计划以及在国家健康保险计划设计中考虑性别。
