Health Insurance in Ghana and Tanzania: Addressing Equity and Accessibility

project summary

The aim of the project is to study the contribution of health insurance schemes to achieving health sector objectives such as access, equity, efficiency, resource mobilisation, risk protection and improvements in health in Tanzania and Ghana. The specific focus will be on: (a) the association between characteristics of health insurance schemes (in terms of design and practical implementation) and performance on health sector objectives, (b) equity in access and utilisation in populations in which some are insured - what are the implications for the poor?; (c) the association between health insurance and health; (d) the quality of health services for insured and non-insured, and; (e) risk equalisation between insurance schemes as a means to increase accesss to health services. An additional objective is to develop and finalise 4 PhD projects as well as strengthen the research collaboration and exchange of experience within the area of health care financing in Ghana, Tanzania and Denmark. The project consists of five sub-projects, one of which is a collaborative project between researchers in Tanzania and Denmark and four PhD projects (two each from Ghana and Tanzania). The projects overlap and complement each other and will to a large extent make use of joint data collection and data sets. A household survey is planned in both countries and additionally as survey among health insurance schemes is planned in Tanzania. The results of the research will be disseminated in scientic articles as well as in more popular forum to stakeholders in the two countries, including Danida, with a view to presenting and discussing concrete recommendations for policy development as well as practical implementation.