Measuring the Direct Cost Burden of Illness in Burkina Faso

In this article, we evaluate the direct cost burden of illness in Burkina Faso. The methodological approach predicts the normative health expenditure based on the population’s health risk factors and adjusts the income based on people’s asset portfolios, which are supposed to influence their ability to manage shocks, or their vulnerability to shocks like illness. Thus, using the National Institute for Statistics and Demography’s priority surveys database of 1996, our methodology leads to a better information on the distributions of income and health care spending across a subsample of 1022 treated individuals. Subsequently, the average of the direct cost burden of illness is 11.17%, and 50% of the population spend more than 10.52% of their adjusted income on normative health care. Otherwise, there is a difference of 66.84 of percentage points between the highest and lowest cost burdens. Overall, women face higher direct costs burden compared to men. Given the “catastrophic health expenditure” threshold conventionally set at 10% of income, to decrease these financial vulnerabilities and inequalities in Burkina Faso, one solution would be to achieve universal health coverage.