Household Healthcare Expenditure Research Articles

Domestic Energy Options and Household Health-Care Expenditures: Does Income-Driven Consumption Matter?

Many people who live in rural areas with low disposable income are unable to acquire clean energy. This means that they are exposed to respiratory diseases and are more likely to encounter unbearable healthcare expenditures. But when stakeholders are responsive, they create a healthcare system that offers affordable and accessible and encourages the use of clean energy. When health care expenditure is high, many poor households struggle to access the services, particularly for households not covered by health insurance. Therefore, the current study sought to examine the moderating role of income on the relationship between domestic energy options and healthcare expenditure. The study used a cross-sectional research design and collected data from a random sample osf 384 households from Kisii County. The data was collected using a structured questionnaire. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings show that most of the households were earning less than Ksh. 30,000 a month. Similarly, more than two-thirds of the households relied on solid biomass including firewood and charcoal for cooking. Findings show that domestic energy options have a significant relationship with healthcare expenditure for households in Kisii County. However, income does not moderate the relationship between domestic energy options and healthcare expenditure. The findings help policymakers to improve the uptake of clean energy options among households by subsidizing the cost of clean energy or removing tax on the products. The findings also encourage the uptake of universal healthcare among poor populations to reduce incidences of catastrophic healthcare expenditure.

Medical cost of environmental pollution: evidence from the Chinese Social Survey.

Environmental pollution impairs residents' health, while the pursuit of health is highly correlated to medical costs. Understanding how environmental pollution affects medical costs is closely linked to the welfare of society. Based on theoretical analysis, this paper uses data from 5112 households of the Chinese Social Survey (CSS) in 2019, constructs a composite indicator to quantify environmental pollution using respondents' evaluations, and empirically investigates the causal effect of environmental pollution on household medical cost and the mechanism. The conclusions are shown as follows. First, environmental pollution can increase household medical costs, and this estimation result still holds after dealing with the endogeneity problem and other robustness tests. Second, there is heterogeneity in the impact of environmental pollution on household medical costs, households in the upper socioeconomic class, with heavy pension burdens or with strong health insurance coverage are more sensitive to environmental pollution and incur relatively higher household medical costs. Third, environmental pollution reduces residents' satisfaction with their spiritual life, which adversely affects their physical and mental health and can increase household medical costs. Residents' satisfaction with their spiritual life is an important mechanism for environmental pollution to affect household health care expenditures. Therefore, governments should enhance the enforcement of environmental protection and governance, strengthen the awareness of green issues and health education, and increase the supply of facilities for leisure and sports, thus reducing medical costs due to environmental pollution and easing the medical burden of residents.

How social norms and values shape household healthcare expenditures and resource allocation: Insights from India

We present a novel perspective on thinking about and studying healthcare spending in contexts where few health-related financial risk protection mechanisms exist and where out-of-pocket spending by households is the norm. Drawing on interviews conducted across 20 villages in two states of India, we illustrate and problematize how a complex interplay of social norms and cultural factors underpin spending decisions within households in such contexts. While our analysis draws on the fieldwork at large, we present our findings through selected narratives - stories of patients suffering from chronic breathlessness. We engage with and reveal the various ways in which social norms dynamically drive this household economy, and shape resource allocation-related decisions. We conclude that in health system contexts where out-of-pocket spending by households is the norm, it is essential to recognise the pragmatic and calculative nature of intra-household allocation of resources, and how it involves bargaining and negotiations at the intersection of social norms, economic class, caste, gender, age, and productive status. And at the same time, how all of this occurs within the economy of the family, and how it plays out differently for different members of a family is also important to recognise. Such recognition can not only help one better appreciate how this household level economy may sometimes maintain and perpetuate entrenched hierarchies and gender inequities, crucially, it can help target health related social protection policies and strategies and make them more responsive to the needs of the most vulnerable in the society and within households.

The heterogeneous relationship between public health expenditures and household medical expenditures: evidence from relative poverty households in China.

Exploring the heterogeneous relationship between public health expenditures and household medical expenditures from the perspective of relative poverty has positive significance for improving the ability of relative poverty households to cope with the risk of large rigid expenditures and optimizing the public health resource allocation. This paper uses the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) from 2016 to 2020 to identify relative poverty standard from the perspective of medical needs, analyzes the impact of public health expenditures on medical expenditures of different household types, and evaluates the effect of public health expenditures on ensuring the medical needs of relative poverty households. The panel threshold regression result shows that 19.36% of the provinces per capita disposable where the household is located is the identification standard of relative poverty households. Public health expenditures have a crowding-in effect on household medical expenditures and have a stronger impact on relative poverty households, an effect that is also confirmed by two-stage least squares regression. In addition, ensuring household medical needs through public health expenditures focuses on the level of basic medical needs, and the role of household healthcare expenditures that reflects high-level medical needs is not obvious. In the future, the government should establish a monitoring mechanism for relative poverty households, ensure the basic medical needs of relative poverty households, and clarify the heterogeneity among different types of households, provide targeted public health services.

Understanding household healthcare expenditure can promote health policy reform.

Studies of health care expenditure often exclude explanatory variables measuring wealth, despite the intuitive importance and policy relevance. We use the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey to assess impacts of income and wealth on health expenditure. We investigate four different dependent variables related to health expenditure and use three main methodological approaches. These approaches include a first difference model and introduction of a lagged dependent variable into a cross-sectional context. The key findings include that wealth tends to be more important than income in identifying variation in health expenditure. This applies for health variables which are not directly linked to means testing, such as spending on health practitioners and for being unable to afford required medical treatment. In contrast, the paper includes no evidence of different impacts of income and wealth on spending on medicines, prescriptions or pharmaceuticals. The results motivate two novel policy innovations. One is the introduction of an asset test for determining rebate eligibility for private health insurance. The second is greater focus on asset testing, rather than income tests, for a wide range of general welfare payments that can be used for health expenditure. Australia's world-leading use of means testing can provide a test case for many countries.

Food Insecurity, Healthcare Utilization, and Healthcare Expenditures: A Longitudinal Cohort Study.

Objective: This study examines the longitudinal association between household food insecurity and healthcare utilization and expenditure. Methods: A multi-wave longitudinal cohort study was conducted using the 2008-2019 and 2021 waves of the Korean Welfare Panel Study. The baseline data included participants aged ≥19years with valid responses to the food insecurity and healthcare questionnaires in the 2008 wave (n = 12,166). Healthcare outcomes encompassed outpatient visits, inpatient admissions, days hospitalized, and personal healthcare expenditure. Random effects Poisson and linear regressions were estimated. Results: Severe food insecurity was associated with a higher incidence rate of outpatient visits (IRR, 1.14; 95% CI, 1.12-1.17), days of hospitalization (IRR, 1.18; 95% CI, 1.13-1.22), and inpatient admissions (IRR, 1.40; 95% CI, 1.18-1.65). Moderate food insecurity was associated with 10.4% ( = -0.11; 95% CI, -0.14 to -0.07) or 238,276 KRW reductions in personal healthcare expenditures in the subsequent year. Conclusion: Household food insecurity was linked to increased healthcare utilization and reduced personal healthcare expenditure among Korean adults. Our findings present opportunities to identify target populations for healthcare policies and interventions.

Comparing estimates of household expenditures between pictorial diaries and surveys in three low- and middle-income countries.

In most low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), household out-of-pocket (OOP) health spending constitutes a major source of healthcare financing. Household surveys are commonly used to monitor OOP health spending, but are prone to recall bias and unable to capture seasonal variation, and may underestimate expenditure-particularly among households with long-term chronic health conditions. Household expenditure diaries have been developed as an alternative to overcome the limitations of surveys, and pictorial diaries have been proposed where literacy levels may render traditional diary approaches inappropriate. This study compares estimates for general household and chronic healthcare expenditure in South Africa, Tanzania and Zimbabwe derived using survey and pictorial diary approaches. We selected a random sub-sample of 900 households across urban and rural communities participating in the Prospective Urban and Rural Epidemiology study. For a range of general and health-specific categories, OOP expenditure estimates use cross-sectional survey data collected via standardised questionnaire, and data from these same households collected via two-week pictorial diaries repeated four times over 2016-2019. In all countries, average monthly per capita expenditure on food, non-food/non-health items, health, and consequently, total household expenditure reported by pictorial diaries was consistently higher than that reported by surveys (each p<0.001). Differences were greatest for health expenditure. The share of total household expenditure allocated to health also differed by method, accounting for 2% in each country when using survey data, and from 8-20% when using diary data. Our findings suggest that the choice of data collection method may have significant implications for estimating OOP health spending and the burden it places on households. Despite several practical challenges to their implementation, pictorial diaries offer a method to assess potential bias in surveys or triangulate data from multiple sources. We offer some practical guidance when considering the use of pictorial diaries for estimating household expenditure.

Does family medicine reduce household health expenditures: evidence from Türkiye.

Türkiye introduced a family medicine-centered primary healthcare model in 2005 as part of the Health Transformation Program, which aimed to reduce household healthcare expenditures, improve access to health services, and reduce the crowding-out effect in first-stage hospital institutions. We investigate the impact of the family medicine program on household healthcare expenditures in Türkiye, focusing on doctor visits, medication prescriptions, and hospitalization expenditures. Using data from a large representative household survey, we employ a difference-in-differences approach combined with the entropy-balancing matching technique. Our robust findings show that living in a province exposed to the family medicine program reduced household doctor visit expenditures by over 40 percent. We also find a significant negative association between the family medicine program and expenditures regarding doctor visits and medication prescriptions in the long run. Greater efforts are now needed to ensure the quality of services offered by family health centers, such as improving the doctor-to-patient ratio.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF COVID 19 ON RURAL HOUSEHOLD WELLBEING IN CAMEROON: EVIDENCE FROM NDOP IN THE NORTH WEST REGION OF CAMEROON

COVID-19 has changed a lot in the way people carry out their daily activities, this change in their daily routine has affected some key indicators of household wellbeing. This study aimed at examining the impact of COVID-19 on some of the key household indicators of wellbeing in Ndop, which is a rural area with agriculture as the main activity. Specifically, the study seeks to; assess the impact of COVID-19 on household disposable income, and evaluate the consequences of COVID-19 incidence on healthcare expenditure. We adopted a convenient and purposive sampling technique and questionnaires were administered to 360 respondents. Data were analyzed using SPSS23 and the models were estimated using ordinary least square (OLS) regression estimation techniques. The result revealed that COVID-19 has a negative and significant effect on household disposable income, as results suggest a drop in household income by 50% due to Covid-19. Secondly, COVID-19 has a negative and significant effect on household healthcare expenditure. To enhance the deteriorating household wellbeing, there is a need for the government to ease the movement of foodstuff from the rural areas to the urban milieu, as this can increase household income in rural areas and hence household expenditure while enhancing the application of Covid-19 protection and treatment measures.

Determinants of Household Healthcare Expenditure: A Study in Purulia District, West Bengal

According to World Health Organization health is considered as "state of complete physical, psychological, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. Healthy people are considered to be the heart of the nation’s growth. Household healthcare expenditure has been a subject of discourse in the field of Health Economics for quite some time now. This is due to the fact that healthcare expenditure has been on the increase globally and there is the need to determine the factors that influencing household healthcare expenditure. The specific objectives of the present study are to analyze the socio-economic and health expenditure characteristics of households in Kashipur block, to determine the factors that influencing healthcare expenditure of the households in Kashipur block. We have visited randomly selected three villages of Kashipur block in Purulia district, West Bengal and surveyed two hundred households. We have used some simple statistical tools and bar diagram for the pictorial exposition of the data. For statistical analysis of data we have used One-Way ANOVA and Tukey’s method as our post hoc test and multiple regression model. The findings of the study reveal that monthly average health expenditure differs across social category and major source of income of the households. The explanatory variables like monthly average family income, social category, household head’s education, number of members in a household above 60years, having at least one member who consume medicines during the whole year and mode of treatment are found to have significant impact on the household average monthly health expenditure. Some explanatory variables like at least one member in a households having Swasthya Sathi card or not, having livestock or not and number of meals a household consume per day becomes insignificant bur their coefficient has expected sign.

Relationship between Household Income, Region and Household Healthcare Expenditure——Empirical research based on the data of China Family Tracking Survey (CFPS)

China's economy has been rapid development in recent years, the residents income is also rising, China's household per capita disposable income growth, the corresponding family health spending also presents the fast growth, while at the same time family per capita health spending continues to grow, but nearly 10 years of family health spending growth is greater than the household disposable income growth, today, After housing and food, medical expenses have become the biggest consumption expenditure of most Chinese households. The medical expenditure caused by diseases is an important factor affecting family happiness, and the aggravation of medical burden decreases family happiness. The differences between urban and rural areas and different regions not only affect the income of families, but also affect the medical expenditure of families from the aspects of medical service quality and health awareness. In addition, the implementation of medical insurance policy also alleviates the medical burden of families to a certain extent. This paper selects microscopic data of CFPS surveyed in 2016 and 2018, and conducts empirical analysis on data of tens of thousands of families with different living conditions in various regions. The results show that income is an important factor affecting family medical expenditure, and family size and health care focus will also affect family medical expenditure. Urban and rural residents and residents in different areas also show differences in medical expenditure

The Effect of Big Data-Based Digital Payments on Household Healthcare Expenditure.

Whether families using big data-based digital payments will increase household healthcare expenditure is a subject that needs to be investigated in the era of big data. Based on the data from China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), 24,126 samples from 2014 to 2018 are used to examine the impact and mechanism of big data-based digital payments on household healthcare expenditure. The empirical results of this paper show that the use of digital payments by households can significantly increase household healthcare expenditure with the empowerment of big data. This research employs the instrumental variable method to verify and produce consistent estimation results in order to address potential endogeneity issues such as measurement error and missing variables. We learn via mechanism analysis that household adoption of big data-driven digital payments can remove credit limitations and build social capital, resulting in higher household health-care spending. We also perform a heterogeneity analysis. The findings reveal that when a family's traditional financial accessibility is high, the head of the household is young or middle-aged, and the head of the household has a higher level of education, digital payment will play a larger role in encouraging household healthcare expenditure. The conclusions of this paper are still solid after changing the indicators of household healthcare expenditure substituting the indicators of digital payment, and adjusting the variables. As a result, this article provides micro-evidence for the usage of digital payments by households to enhance healthcare spending.JEL ClassificationD12 G21 O30 O53 I12

The Impact of Household Cooking Fuel Choice on Healthcare Expenditure in Ghana

This study investigates the impact of household cooking fuel choice on household healthcare expenditure as well as the socioeconomic and demographic factors that influence household healthcare expenditure. We employed the Tobit regression technique and data from the sixth and seventh rounds of the Ghana Living Standards Survey conducted in 2012/13 and 2016/17, respectively. The results indicate that in 2012/13, relative to households using wood as cooking fuel, households using charcoal and liquefied petroleum gas are 54.40 and 115.09 percentage points less likely to spend on healthcare services. However, the figure reduced to 28.15 and 103.25 percentage points in 2016/17 attributable possibly to a reduction in biomass energy use resulting from government liquefied petroleum gas promotion programs which helped households transition to the use of cleaner fuels. Age, education, illness reporting of the household head, total household expenditure, household size, and region of residence were found to be the determinants of household healthcare expenditure. Policy choices should focus on the use of cleaner fuel options including sustaining and extending the rural liquefied petroleum gas promotion program as well as reducing the use of dirty fuels.

Women autonomy and demand for maternal health services in Nigeria: Evidence from the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey.

Improving women autonomy can be vital in determining the uptake of healthcare services, especially in a patriarchal society with gender rights concerns. Using the 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey and employing Zero Inflated Negative Binomial regression, the effect of household decision-making power with considerations to women autonomy on the demand for maternal health services in Nigeria was examined. The result of the analysis suggests that women autonomy in deciding expenditures on household healthcare services, and autonomy in deciding their income expenditures significantly increases the likelihood of demand for maternal healthcare services. On the other hand, when the husband/partner makes sole decision, as well as joint decision making concerning expenditure on household healthcare services and expenditure of woman's income reduces the likelihood of demand for maternal healthcare services in the country. This reduction was however much more when husband alone takes the decision than when decisions were taken jointly. Other socioeconomic variables like higher maternal education, and household wealth, also increased the demand for maternal healthcare services. We recommend that government should put in place policies that will help increase women's participation in household decision-making through the sensitization and capacity building initiatives such as improved educational quality for women.

How household healthcare expenditures redistribute disposable income? An analysis using Bangladesh household income and expenditure survey, 2010.

Essential healthcare is a civil right. Payments toward healthcare is a moral compulsion, and no less strong than legal compulsion like income tax. Healthcare payments can redistribute disposable income. Redistribution may be vertical (from rich to poor or opposite) and horizontal (from men to women or from households without children to households with children). Health planners are interested in degrees to which redistribution occurs. In this paper, we aim to analyze how well different forms of healthcare payments in Bangladesh redistribute disposable income. Our data comes from Bangladesh Household Income and Expenditure Survey, 2010. Using the methods developed by Aronson et al. (1994), we assessed average rate effect, progressivity, horizontal equity and re-ranking. The results suggest that Bangladesh health systems finance has a pro-rich redistribution of disposable income. Post-payment disposable income decreases for the poor and increases for the rich. As a result, the poor are in a shortfall in disposable income, which ultimately get them to impoverishment, and or push them to deeper poverty. On the contrary, the rich become richer due to increase in post-payment disposable income. This leads to an increase in inequality.

Assessment of the impact of heart failure on household economic well-being: a protocol

Background: Heart failure (HF), which is an emerging public health issue, adversely affects the strained health system in India. The adverse impact of HF on the economic well-being has been narrated in various anecdotal reports from India, with affected individuals and their dependents pushed into the vicious cycle of poverty. There is limited research quantifying how HF impacts the economic well-being of households from low- and middle-income countries. Methods: We describe the methods of a detailed economic impact assessment of HF at the household level in India. The study will be initiated across 20 hospitals in India, which are part of the National heart Failure Registry (NHFR). The selected centres represent different regions in India, stratified based on the prevailing stages of epidemiological transition levels (ETLs). We will collect data from 1800 patients with acute decompensated HF and within 6-15 months follow-up from the time of initial admission. The data that we intend to collect will consist of a) household healthcare expenditure including out-of-pocket expenditure, b) financing mechanisms used by households and (c) the impoverishing effects of health expenditures including distress financing and catastrophic health expenditure. Trained staff at each centre will collect data by using a validated and structured interview schedule. The study will have 80% power to detect an 8% difference in the proportion of households experiencing catastrophic health expenditures between two ETL groups. After considering a non-response rate of 5%, the target sample size is approximately 600 patients from each group and the total sample size is 1800 patients. Potential Impact: Our study will provide information on catastrophic health spending, distress financing and household expenditure in heart failure patients. Our findings will help policy makers in understanding the micro-economic impact of HF in India and aid in allocation of appropriate resources for prevention and control of HF.

Assessment of the impact of heart failure on household economic well-being: a protocol

Background: Heart failure (HF), which is an emerging public health issue, adversely affects the strained health system in India. The adverse impact of HF on the economic well-being has been narrated in various anecdotal reports from India, with affected individuals and their dependents pushed into the vicious cycle of poverty. There is limited research quantifying how HF impacts the economic well-being of households from low- and middle-income countries. Methods: We describe the methods of a detailed economic impact assessment of HF at the household level in India. The study will be initiated across 20 hospitals in India, which are part of the National heart Failure Registry (NHFR). The selected centres represent different regions in India, stratified based on the prevailing stages of epidemiological transition levels (ETLs). We will collect data from 1800 patients with acute decompensated HF and within 6-15 months follow-up from the time of initial admission. The data that we intend to collect will consist of a) household healthcare expenditure including out-of-pocket expenditure, b) financing mechanisms used by households and (c) the impoverishing effects of health expenditures including distress financing and catastrophic health expenditure. Trained staff at each centre will collect data by using a validated and structured interview schedule. The study will have 80% power to detect an 8% difference in the proportion of households experiencing catastrophic health expenditures between two ETL groups. After considering a non-response rate of 5%, the target sample size is approximately 600 patients from each group and the total sample size is 1800 patients. Potential Impact: Our study will provide information on catastrophic health spending, distress financing and household expenditure in heart failure patients. Our findings will help policy makers in understanding the micro-economic impact of HF in India and aid in allocation of appropriate resources for prevention and control of HF.

Household Expenditures on Primary, Secondary and Higher-level Health Care in Pokhara Metropolitan, Nepal

Introduction: Household health expenditures are the costs related to the health care and services from a house. The household health care expenditure constitutes a larger share (55.4%) of total health expenditures in Nepal which imply that health care can place a significant financial burden on households. Therefore, the aim of the study was to estimate the household expenditures on primary, secondary and higher-level health care in Nepalese households.&#x0D; Methods: A community based cross sectional study was conducted among 335 household heads in Lekhnath municipality, Kaski, Nepal later changed in to Pokhara Metropolitan. An interview schedule was used to collect the data through face to face interview. Cluster sampling technique was used to select desired number of participants.&#x0D; Results: More than eight out of ten participants (88.1%) visited private health facility for the treatment. More than half (61.5%) had taken secondary and higher-level services. Among out-of-pocket household expenditure the mean (±SD) direct cost was NRs.24100±36870 where minimum expenditure was NRs.50 while maximum expenditure was NRs. 255025. Similarly, mean (±SD) indirect cost was NRs.784.48±2319 where majority expenditures (96.8%) were direct costs while 3.2% were indirect costs. The mean (±SD) cost for primary health services was NRs.905.07±1729 where minimum was NRs.60 and maximum was NRs.10110. Similarly, the mean (±SD) cost for secondary and higher-level services was NRs.23200±37390 where minimum was NRs.50 and maximum was NRs.255025.&#x0D; Conclusion: The average (±SD) household expenditure on different health services was NRs. 24800±38630 per annum, which is higher health expenditures for health service. The majority (96.8%) of health expenditures were included to direct costs while only 3.2% were in indirect costs. Higher expenditure was on secondary and higher-level services and it was NRs.23200 per annum while least expenditure on primary health services was NRs.905.07 per annum.

Analysis of the Household and Health Care System Expenditures in Bulgaria.

Health care systems worldwide are experiencing tremendous financial pressure because of the introduction of new targeted health technologies and medicines. This study aims to analyze and compare public and household healthcare expenditures in Bulgaria during the period 2015–2019, as well as present the major cost-containment measures implied by the government and their probable influence on the overall health care cost. Regulatory analysis of the endorsed cost-containment measures, budget analysis of public and household health care expenditures, and their extrapolations were performed. The regulatory analysis reveals that a large number of measures are introduced and valid until January 2021, considering pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and negotiations between the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) and Marketing authorization holders (MAHs). NHIF costs due to pharmaceuticals, food supplements, and medical devices are rising from 2015 to 2019. The overall health expenditures average per household and the average per person also grow in this period. The cost extrapolation reveals that an increase in 3-year periods is expected. Despite the implementation of variety of cost-containment measures in Bulgaria, such as HTA, ERP, discounts, and annual negotiations, The National Health Insurance Fund's (NHIF) spending on pharmaceuticals continues to rise in recent years, and further increases are expected in the next 3 years. The average expenditure per household and per person also increased, which confirms the global trend of rising medicine and outpatient services value.

Assessment of the impact of heart failure on household economic well-being: a protocol.

Background: Heart failure (HF), which is an emerging public health issue, adversely affects the strained health system in India. Additionally, the adverse impact of HF on the economic well-being of affected individuals and their families has been narrated in various anecdotal reports, with affected individuals and their dependents pushed into poverty. However, there is limited research quantifying how HF impacts the economic well-being of households from low- and middle-income countries. Methods: We describe the methods of a detailed economic impact assessment of HF at the household level in India. The study will be initiated across 20 hospitals in India. The selected centres represent different regions in India stratified based on the prevailing stages of epidemiological transition levels (ETLs). We will collect data from 1800 patients with acute decompensated HF and within 6-15 months follow-up from the time of initial admission. The data that we intend to collect will consist of a) household healthcare expenditure including out-of-pocket expenditure, b) financing mechanisms used by households and (c) the impoverishing effects of health expenditures including distress financing and catastrophic health expenditure. Trained staff at each centre will collect relevant data by using a validated and structured interview schedule. The study will have 80% power to detect an 8% difference in the proportion of households experiencing catastrophic health expenditures between two ETL groups. After considering a non-response rate of 5%, the target sample size is approximately 600 patients from each group and the total sample size is 1800 patients with heart failure. Impact: The results from our study will help policy makers in understanding the micro-economic impact of HF in India and aid in allocation of appropriate resources for prevention and control of HF.