Financial Accessibility of Iranian Households to Health Care Services during 1983-2008

Financial accessibility of households to health care services is a major concern for policy-makers and planners in health systems. The aim of this study was to assess the status of Iranian households'' financial accessibility to health care services during 1983-2008.

In this descriptive-analytical study، data of the national survey of households'' cost and income conducted by the Iranian Statistics Center were used and studied in 2011. We calculated the trend of proportion of health care expenditures to households'' income and regression estimation of health care expenditures function in logarithmic form to assess the status of households'' financial accessibility to health care services. The Excel 2007 and the Eviews 5 were used to present descriptive statistics and regression estimations.

Findings of this study showed that the proportion of health care expenditures to average income had permanent and significant increase during the study period. Coefficient of impact of income on health care expenditures in urban and rural households were 1. 07 and 0. 91 (P<0. 05)، respectively. Coefficient of impact of social health insurance expenditures on health care expenditures in both urban and rural households was not statistically significant.

In recent years، the proportion of health care expenditures to households'' average income has been increased and financial accessibility of households to health care services has been significantly decreased in Iran. Moreover، development of health insurance coverage and prepayment mechanisms has not significant impact on decline of the proportion of health care expenditures to households'' income.