Objectives Many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) provide subsidised access to health services for the poor. Proxy means tests (PMTs) for income are typically employed to identify eligible beneficiaries for subsidised services but often result in significant mistargeting of benefits. We assessed the PMT approach used in Myanmar's hospital equity fund (HEF). Methods We analysed inclusion/exclusion errors by comparing household eligibility under the PMT used for HEF with household consumption (the gold standard proxy for income in LMICs). We assessed receipt of benefits post-hospitalisation against HEF eligibility rules and household income. Focus groups/interviews were conducted to understand administrative factors that influence targeting. We modelled (linear regression) predictors of household consumption to improve PMT accuracy. Results We found large targeting errors (86% of households in the bottom consumption quartile would be excluded and 15% of households in the top consumption quartile deemed eligible). HEF scores for PMT held little explanatory power for household income: 93% of individuals meeting the HEF eligibility criteria did not receive benefits post-hospitalisation, while 23% of ineligible individuals received programme support. Re-weighting PMT indicators on electricity access, land ownership and livestock ownership, and assigning weights to home-ownership, households with elderly/disabled members and household head education levels could significantly improve targeting accuracy. Poor programme awareness and uneven adherence to official eligibility determination procedures among staff likely affected targeting. Conclusions Re-weighting PMT indicators and increasing training and communication about qualification procedures could improve allocation of limited funds, though accurate targeting may continue to be challenging in contexts of low state capacity.

BackgroundNon-communicable diseases (NCDs) are becoming a major source of the national disease burden in Myanmar with potentially serious economic implications.MethodsUsing data on 5484 households from the World Health Survey (WHS), this study assessed the household-level economic burden of two chronic conditions, angina and asthma, in Myanmar. Propensity score matching (PSM) and coarsened exact matching (CEM) methods were used to compare household out-of-pocket (OOP) spending, catastrophic and impoverishment effects, reliance on borrowing or asset sales to finance OOP healthcare payments and employment among households reporting a member with angina (asthma) to matched households, with and without adjusting for comorbidities. Sensitivity analyses were carried out to assess the impacts of alternative assumptions on common support and potential violations of the assumption of independence of households being angina (asthma) affected and household economic outcomes, conditional on the variables used for matching (conditional independence).ResultsHouseholds with angina (asthma) reported greater OOP spending (angina: range I$1.94-I$4.31; asthma: range I$1.53-I$2.01) (I$1=125.09 Myanmar Kyats; I$=International Dollar) almost half of which was spending on medicines; higher rates of catastrophic spending based on a 20% threshold ratio of OOP to total household spending (angina: range 6-7%; asthma: range 3-5%); greater reliance on borrowing and sale of assets to finance healthcare (angina: range 12-14%; asthma: range 40-49%); increased medical impoverishment and lower employment rates than matched controls. There were no statistically differences in OOP expenses for inpatient care between angina-affected (asthma-affected) households and matched controls. Our results were generally robust to multiple methods of matching. However, conclusions for medical impoverishment impacts were not robust to potential violations of the conditional independence assumption.ConclusionsMyanmar is expanding public spending on health and has recently launched an innovative programme for supporting hospital-based care for poor households. Our findings suggest the need for interventions to address OOP expenses associated with outpatient care (including drugs) for chronic conditions in Myanmar's population.

The government of Myanmar, with support from international donors, plans to address household financial risks from ill health and expand coverage. But evidence to design policy is limited. WHS (World Health Survey) data for 6045 households were used to investigate the association of out-of-pocket (OOP) health spending, catastrophic expenditures, and household borrowing and asset sales associated with illness with key socioeconomic and demographic correlates in Myanmar. Households with elderly and young children and chronically ill individuals, poor households, and ethnic minorities face higher financial stress from illness. Rural households use less care, suggesting their lower OOP health spending may be at the cost of health. Poorer groups rely more on public sector health services than richer groups. Better targeting, increased budgetary allocations, and more effective use of resources via designing cost-effective benefits packages appear key to sustainably addressing financial risks from ill health in Myanmar.