(African Economic Research Consortium, 2024-04-09) Edeh, Henry C.; Nnamani, Alexander Uchenna; Ozor, Jane O.
According to World Health Organization (WHO, 2005; 2010; 2017), countries need to fund their health systems through general revenues or premium contributions of social health insurance, complemented with government revenues, to achieve UHC and financial protection. However, government funding for health in Nigeria remains generally inadequate and many households still suffer financial hardship resulting from high OOP medical spending (Edeh, 2022). OOP medical spending in Nigeria is still up to 75%, which is well above the WHO recommended 15-20% for the achievement of financial protection (World Bank, World Development Indicator (WDI), 2021). This excess reliance on OOP spending for medical bills tempts households to forgo medical care, deepens unequal access to quality health care and exposes Nigeria households to incurring catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) (Amos et al., 2016). The COVID-19 pandemic may have worsened the situation, since it led to decline in household income. Hence, our study estimates the effect of COVID-19 on catastrophic medical spending and forgone medical care in Nigeria.