Study on awareness of health insurance among the adult population of rural areas in the Wardha district of Maharashtra: a protocol

Abstract

Introduction: Globally, the foundation of health insurance is substantial. However, the Indian health insurance sector lags. Only 14.1% of the rural population is covered by health insurance. That is, 85.9% of individuals in rural India still lack any form of health expenditure coverage and are unaware and thus are uninsured. Despite all the efforts made by the health system to assist the Indian population with supporting their healthcare finances, the public is unable to use these services simply because they are unaware of them. Individuals without health insurance will experience impoverishment due to health-related problems. Increased health insurance awareness can also be an indicator of universal health coverage. The objective is to study rural community individuals' awareness, perception, and utilisation of health insurance and to determine the association between sociodemographic variables and awareness of health insurance. Methods: The study will be a community based cross-sectional and observational study design in the Wardha district of Maharashtra from September 2023. Individuals within the region who are over 18 and at home during the visit will be included in the study. Individuals under the age requirement, and any empty households during the visits will be excluded. A pre-designed and semi structured questionnaire will be used. House-to-house visits will be done and information will be obtained by interviews. SPSS 24.0 software will be used for the data analysis. Variables included are name, age, sex, type of family, occupation, and knowledge of health insurance. Conclusions: The results of this study will involve an assessment of the participant’s awareness, perception, and utilisation of health insurance, and the association between socio demographic variables and awareness of health insurance. Descriptive statistics like frequency and percentages will be calculated. Chi-square test will be used for association between variables.