Despite the potentially devastating financial consequences of illness, most health systems fail to offer adequate financial protection to citizens but should.
In this week's PLoS Medicine, Rodrigo Moreno-Serra from Imperial College London, UK and colleagues argue that new, broader measures are needed to better inform policy development on financial protection, including new indicators that identify citizens who cannot afford to use health services and may have very low or no health spending.
Funding: RMS and PCS were in part supported by a grant from the European Observatory for Health Systems and Policy. CM is funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research & Care scheme. PS receives research funds from the World Health Organization European Regional Office. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interests: PCS is periodically in receipt of research funds from the World Health Organization European Regional Office. All other authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Citation: Moreno-Serra R, Millett C, Smith PC (2011) Towards Improved Measurement of Financial Protection in Health. PLoS Med 8(9): e1001087. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001087
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CONTACT:
Rodrigo Moreno-Serra
Institute of Global Health Innovation
Imperial College London
15 Princes Gardens
3rd Floor
South Kensington Campus
London SW7 1NA
United Kingdom
r.moreno-serra@imperial.ac.uk
PLOS Medicine