Determinants of Uptake of Community-Based Health Insurance in the Bamenda Ecclesiastical Province Health Assistance

Abstract

This study was aimed at identifying the determinants of the uptake of Community-Based Health Insurance within the Bamenda Ecclesiastical Province Health Assistance (BEPHA) of Cameroon. To meet this objective, data from 2043 structured questionnaires administered in the partner health facilities of the Bamenda Ecclesiastical Province Health Assistance was used. Stata 14.2 was used to process the data. It adopted the logit model to analyse the data. While age, level of income, religion and marital status showed positive and significant relationship with adherence, level of education, place of residence and distance to the nearest affiliated health facility were found to be negatively related to insurance uptake. In order to increase rate of adherence for people who are between 30 and 49 years of age, we recommended that government and stakeholders should work in synergy with insurers to reduce the insurance premiums for those in this age group. Policies to ensure balanced regional development should be implemented to the later with more emphasis on infrastructural development of rural areas so that they can experience increase in their incomes and so demand for better health services. Specifically, the development of infrastructures like roads, electricity and others will cause the creation of more job opportunities for the rural settlers as well as taking their products to the market in exchange for incomes which will in turn permit them to afford insurance premiums to adhere.