Determinants and impact of household's out-of-pocket healthcare expenditure in Sudan: evidence from urban and rural population*

ABSTRACT This paper examines the determinants of the out-of-pocket health expenditure and catastrophic health spending incurred by Sudanese households. It also investigates the effect of out-of-pocket health expenditure on poverty incidence among households. The study uses 2009s National Baseline Household Survey (NBHS) data. The results show that factors such as household’s income, educational achievement of household’s head, household size, number of household’s members over 65 years old are the most important factors influencing out-of-pocket health expenditure. The results also indicate that the presence of elderly and children among the household’s members increases the risk of incurring catastrophic health expenditure. Moreover, the empirical results document that out-of-pocket health expenditure pushes a considerable portion of Sudanese households into poverty. Finally, the paper ends with some recommendations that aim to assist policymakers in designing an appropriate health financing strategy to protect households against the risk of out-of-pocket health expenditure and to reduce its impoverishment impact.