Distress Healthcare Financing among Informal-sector Workers: A Study in Purulia District, West Bengal, India

Abstract

Based on a micro-level field investigation conducted in the Purulia district of West Bengal (a state in India), the present paper investigates the factors influencing the incidence of distress healthcare financing among the households whose principal earning members are working as informal workers. Distress healthcare financing is defined as a situation when a household has to borrow money with interest, and/or sell assets/livestock to pay its out-of-pocket healthcare expenses. It was found that distress healthcare financing was highly influenced by catastrophic healthcare expenditure, the proportion of working members & occupation of principal earning members.