[afro-nets] Household experiences of ill-health and risk protection mechanisms

["Rebecca Wolfe" <Rebecca.Wolfe@lshtm.ac.uk>]

Managing risks: household illness costs, coping strategies and access to social protection Special issue of the Journal of International Development, Volume 21, Number 2, March 2009.

The Journal of International Development has published a special issue on household experiences of ill-health and risk protection mechanisms. The edition is based on a collaborative research workshop that was hosted by the Consortium for Research on Equitable Health Systems (CREHS) to discuss research findings from several countries in Africa and Asia.

Illness-related impoverishment can result both from direct consequences of having to pay for health services, and from the indirect effects of illness and health expenditure on householdsâ productive activities and livelihood resources. Household responses to such events can make them more vulnerable to future health shocks. Much of the contemporary discussion around issues of financial risk protection revolve around the need to develop mechanisms to protect households against the risks of large health expenditures, and to strengthen their resources for managing such shocks.  

The papers presented in this special issue draw on different theoretical approaches to analyse the processes linking illness and impoverishment at the household level. They measure the costs of illness and the burdens these impose on household budgets, explore treatment actions and the strategies used to pay for the treatment, and assess households access to and uptake of policy measures designed to reduce health care expenditures and protect livelihoods.

The insights provided by this collection of papers from a variety of country contexts in Africa and Asia, help to cast light on the types of policy measures needed to effectively protect poor households from risks associated with health expenditure. They also draw attention to the various challenges of policy implementation including the perceptions of actors throughout the health system.

This special issue will be of particular relevance to researchers that work on financial risk protection and broader social protection issues, and for and policy makers and advisors concerned with health financing arrangements in low and middle-income countries.

Access the journal online:
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/5102/home
Go to the CREHS website: http://www.crehs.lshtm.ac.uk/

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Rebecca Wolfe
mailto:Rebecca.Wolfe@lshtm.ac.uk