Awareness of health insurance in a rural population of Bangalore, India

Abstract

Background: Health insurance is a rapidly emerging social security instrument for the rural poor, for whom, chronic health problems, arising due to prevalence of diseases and inaccessibility to an affordable health care system is a major threat to their income earning capacity. Insurance is one of the risk management strategies. The need for an insurance system that works on the basic principle of pooling of risks of unexpected costs of persons falling ill and needing hospitalization by charging premium from a wider population base of the same community. There is a need to increase the awareness of health insurance among rural population therefore this study was undertaken. Objective: (1) To study the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of study population; and (2) to analyze the awareness of health insurance of study population. Materials and Methods: A pretested semi-structured questionnaire was used for collecting data on sociodemographic and economic characteristics of the study population and their awareness of the benefits and purpose of taking health insurance. Study was from October 2015 to December 2015. The data were analyzed using percentages and proportion. A total of 1084 sample houses were visited and among them 399 were interviewed. Result: Of the 399 respondents, 302 (75.7%) of them were aware of health insurance. Among 302 only 202 (66.9%) had procured health insurance. Of these, 187(95.5%) had government insurance and 15(7.5%) of them had private health insurance. Awareness of health insurance was associated with socioeconomic status and education (p < 0.05). Conclusion: The determinants of awareness of health insurance were education and socioeconomic status. Though this study shows increased prevalence of awareness of health insurance there is still an alarming need to improve the awareness with regard to their knowledge about health insurance covering the medical expenses in the rural communities.