Community-based health insurance in Ethiopia

A Community-Based Health Insurance (CBHI) pilot programme was launched in Ethiopia in 2010 in an attempt to reduce access barriers to modern healthcare and provide financial protection against health shocks. The first key objective of the research is to identify the conduits through which health shocks affect households’ living standards in terms of increased expenditures or forgone healthcare. The second is to examine how healthcare utilization, out-of-pocket health spending and poverty are affected by CBHI. The study will use a mixed method approach using sequential as well as concurrent triangulation that draws on a longitudinal household survey and qualitative research techniques. This allows comparison of households in intervention and control villages before and after the introduction of CBHI.