Household expenditures on pneumonia and diarrhoea treatment in Ethiopia: a facility-based study

Abstract

This article, published in BMJ Global Health, quantifies household out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure for treatment of childhood pneumonia and diarrhoea and estimates its impact on poverty for different socioeconomic groups in Ethiopia. The study finds that wealthier and urban households have higher OOP payments, but poorer and rural households are more likely to be impoverished due to medical payments. The present circumstances call for revisiting the existing health financing strategy for high-priority services that place a substantial burden of payment on households at the point of care.