Utilisation of Health Care Facilities and Insurance Coverage among Urban Poor: A Study of Three Cities in India

Abstract

This paper analyses the source of health care facilities, focusing on under-utilization of public health facilities and insurance coverage among the urban poor. It used data from 5720 households from three Indian cities of Bhubaneswar, Jaipur and Pune.Urban poor are highly deprived in health insurance coverage as the adjusted effect portrays that slum residences in Jaipur and Pune are 0.57 (p<0.05) and 0.63 (p<0.05) times less likely to be covered by any health insurance despite a considerable proportion of them visiting private health facilities for general health and for maternal,new born and child health services. Only one-fifth of the households in the three cities have at least one member in the family covered under any health insurance scheme. The proportion is lower among slum dwellers as only one in every tenth household reported having at least one member covered in it.