Determinants of knowledge about health insurance among men in Uganda

Abstract

Health insurance is one of the ways that people in various countries finance their medical needs. In recent years, the private health insurance market designed to supplement Medicare coverage has received considerable publicity through its own advertising and through some critical news stories that culminated in congressional hearings on abuses in the market. This study was conducted to examine knowledge about health insurance among men in Uganda. The study used secondary data from the 2016 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey dataset. A sample of 5336 men that were interviewed aged between 15- 54 years was used. Data was analyzed using Stata 14 into frequency tables using actual tallies and percentages and association between the dependent and independent variables was tested using the Pearson’s Chi-square test. The Study results show that of all the 5336 men, 34.4% were knowledgeable about health insurance in Uganda. 2 out of 5 were aged 15-19, 75.1% resided in rural places, 40.4% were Catholics, 55.5% were married/living together, 45.8% were rich and 43.7% were in agricultural self-employment. Findings from the study revealed that age, education level, occupation, wealth status, residence, marital status, accessibility to information that is reads newspapers, watches television significantly influenced knowledge about Health insurance among men in Uganda with the measure of significance at P ≤ 0.05. According to the hypotheses of the study that men with more than secondary education are more likely to have knowledge about health insurance more than men with no education and that men in the rich wealth quintile are more likely to have knowledge about health insurance than men who are in the middle and poor wealth quintiles, study results indicate that education and wealth status are associated with knowledge about health insurance among men in Uganda. Therefore, the study does not reject the hypotheses and concludes that education and wealth status are associated with knowledge about health insurance. The study recommends that there should be an increase on the average level of knowledge about health insurance through great sensitization by health professionals with the help of government policies in relation to insurance about its importance so as to change the individual’s perspective of thinking towards health practices. Private insurers should emphasise more on advertising and building brand awareness through different modes of communication. This will help in spreading insurance awareness among the common man.