Knowledge of mobile health insurance uptake in Uganda: a case study of MTN aYo insurance

Abstract

This study is focused on knowledge of mobile health insurance in Uganda. The study is specifically on MTN aYo, which is a cheap form of mobile Health insurance in Uganda. A primary source of data was used, it was collected directly from the people in the informal sector in Wandegeya. The Data was collected using the questionnaires where it was transferred to Excel then STATA 15 where it was cleaned and analyzed using univariate, bivariate and multivariate analysis. It was found that almost half of the respondents were female, most of them were in the age brackets of 18-23 and 24-29, had smart phones (68%), A forth of the respondents had health insurance(27%), 65% knew people with health insurance and 35% did not know anyone with health insurance. The majority of the people (79%) think that health insurance is necessary, and the number of the respondents that had ever fallen sick is greater than those that have never fallen sick (83% have ever fallen sick while 17% have never fallen sick). Gender, Education level, Having health insurance, Knowing any one with health insurance, Thinking if health insurance is necessary, Ever fallen sick, Thinking if health insurance premiums are affordable, Having a smart phone, and Buying insurance from a mobile insurance provider were selected for multivariate analysis (P<0.1). The final analysis showed that the only significant variable was having a smart phone. A person with a smart phone was 5.4 times more likely to buy mobile health insurance than a person without a smart phone (OR=5.430493, 95%CI: 1.733894, 17.00811). The study recommended that the government of Uganda should sensitize the people on mobile health insurance, the importance of health insurance and also put incentives such as giving phones at affordable prices or giving them out at no cost to those who do not own any.