IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/sajeco/v90y2022i4p456-468.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Time, health service utilisation and health status in Africa: Evidence from six countries

Author

Listed:
  • Germano Mwabu

Abstract

The debate on mechanisms for health‐care financing in sub‐Saharan Africa since the pre‐independence days has focused on roles of markets and governments in mobilising resources to finance health services, with little or no awareness of the role played by the household time allocations across everyday tasks. The paper first examines the response of health service utilisation to monetary prices of care and to the time costs of fetching water and firewood. Next it estimates the effect of service usage on health status using comparable survey data from Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Niger and Uganda. The main finding of the study is that health service utilisation is negatively associated with the monetary and time costs incurred to access health facilities, but the effect of service usage on health status in the study samples is generally positive. The evidence from this study and that from previous investigations in the field, both suggest that a broad‐based health‐care financing strategy in sub‐Saharan Africa should include affordable user charges, local level public provision of social insurance and water supplies, as well as investments in domestic fuel technologies and transportation infrastructure directed at reducing time poverty.

Suggested Citation

  • Germano Mwabu, 2022. "Time, health service utilisation and health status in Africa: Evidence from six countries," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 90(4), pages 456-468, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:sajeco:v:90:y:2022:i:4:p:456-468
    DOI: 10.1111/saje.12320
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/saje.12320
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/saje.12320?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kasey S. Buckles & Daniel M. Hungerman, 2013. "Season of Birth and Later Outcomes: Old Questions, New Answers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(3), pages 711-724, July.
    2. Germano Mwabu, 2009. "The Production of Child Health in Kenya: A Structural Model of Birth Weight," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 18(2), pages 212-260, March.
    3. Jens Kovsted & Claus C. Pörtner & Finn Tarp, 2002. "Child Health and Mortality: Does Health Knowledge Matter?," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 11(4), pages 542-560.
    4. Michael Lokshin & Sergiy Radyakin, 2012. "Month of Birth and Children’s Health in India," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 47(1), pages 174-203.
    5. Grossman, Michael, 1972. "On the Concept of Health Capital and the Demand for Health," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 80(2), pages 223-255, March-Apr.
    6. Edward Miguel & Michael Kremer, 2004. "Worms: Identifying Impacts on Education and Health in the Presence of Treatment Externalities," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(1), pages 159-217, January.
    7. Jason R. Williams & Yuta J. Masuda & Heather Tallis, 2016. "A Measure Whose Time has Come: Formalizing Time Poverty," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 128(1), pages 265-283, August.
    8. Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2015. "Control Function Methods in Applied Econometrics," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 420-445.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Schultz, T. Paul, 2010. "Population and Health Policies," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4785-4881, Elsevier.
    2. Eva Deuchert & Conny Wunsch, 2010. "Evaluating Nationwide Health Interventions when Standard Before-After Doesn't Work: Malawi's ITN Distribution Program," CESifo Working Paper Series 3036, CESifo.
    3. Miller, Ray, 2017. "Childhood Health and Prenatal Exposure to Seasonal Food Scarcity in Ethiopia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 350-376.
    4. Joseph Cummins, 2013. "On the Use and Misuse of Child Height-for-Age Z-score in the Demographic and Health Surveys," Working Papers 201417, University of California at Riverside, Department of Economics.
    5. Janet Currie & Tom Vogl, 2013. "Early-Life Health and Adult Circumstance in Developing Countries," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 1-36, May.
    6. Fitzsimons, Emla & Malde, Bansi & Mesnard, Alice & Vera-Hernández, Marcos, 2016. "Nutrition, information and household behavior: Experimental evidence from Malawi," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 113-126.
    7. Okeke, Edward N. & Adepiti, Clement A. & Ajenifuja, Kayode O., 2013. "What is the price of prevention? New evidence from a field experiment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 207-218.
    8. Agarwal, Neha & Aiyar, Anaka & Bhattacharjee, Arpita & Cummins, Joseph & Gunadi, Christian & Singhania, Deepak & Taylor, Matthew & Wigton-Jones, Evan, 2017. "Month of birth and child height in 40 countries," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 10-13.
    9. Gracious M. Diiro & Abdoul G. Sam & David Kraybill, 2017. "Heterogeneous Effects of Maternal Labor Market Participation on the Nutritional Status of Children: Empirical Evidence from Rural India," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 10(3), pages 609-632, September.
    10. Mesnard, Alice & Vera-Hernández, Marcos & Fitzsimons, Emla & Malde, Bansi, 2012. "Household Responses to Information on Child Nutrition: Experimental Evidence from Malawi," CEPR Discussion Papers 8915, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. David Cutler & Angus Deaton & Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2006. "The Determinants of Mortality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 97-120, Summer.
    12. Braakmann, Nils, 2011. "The causal relationship between education, health and health related behaviour: Evidence from a natural experiment in England," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 753-763, July.
    13. Sarah Baird & Joan Hamory Hicks & Michael Kremer & Edward Miguel, 2016. "Worms at Work: Long-run Impacts of a Child Health Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1637-1680.
    14. Laura R. Wherry & Bruce D. Meyer, 2016. "Saving Teens: Using a Policy Discontinuity to Estimate the Effects of Medicaid Eligibility," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 51(3), pages 556-588.
    15. Husain, Muhammad Jami, 2009. "Contribution of health to economic development: a survey and overview," Economics Discussion Papers 2009-40, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    16. Peter Hull & Michal Kolesár & Christopher Walters, 2022. "Labor by design: contributions of David Card, Joshua Angrist, and Guido Imbens," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(3), pages 603-645, July.
    17. Daniel Eisenberg & Ezra Golberstein & Janis L. Whitlock & Marilyn F. Downs, 2013. "Social Contagion Of Mental Health: Evidence From College Roommates," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(8), pages 965-986, August.
    18. Douglas Almond & Janet Currie & Valentina Duque, 2018. "Childhood Circumstances and Adult Outcomes: Act II," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(4), pages 1360-1446, December.
    19. Abeliansky, Ana Lucia & Strulik, Holger, 2018. "How season of birth affects health and aging," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 352, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    20. repec:aer:wpaper:340 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. M. O. Oleche & D. K. Manda & R. G. Mutegi & S. Kipruto & M. K. Muriithi & P. Samoei & A. W. Ndirangu & G. Mwabu, 2023. "The gendered impacts of COVID-19 and business closure due to lockdown on wage employment in Kenya," Journal of Economic Policy and Management Issues, JEPMI, vol. 2(2), pages 31-48.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:sajeco:v:90:y:2022:i:4:p:456-468. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/essaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.