Impacts of chronic non-communicable diseases on households' out-of-pocket healthcare expenditures in Sri Lanka.

This article examines the effects of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) on households' out-of-pocket health expenditures in Sri Lanka. We explore the disease specific impacts on out-of-pocket health care expenses from chronic NCDs such as heart diseases, hypertension, cancer, diabetics and asthma. We use nationwide cross-sectional household income and expenditure survey 2012/2013 data compiled by the department of census and statistics of Sri Lanka. Employing propensity score matching method to account for selectivity bias, we find that chronic NCD affected households appear to spend significantly higher out-of-pocket health care expenditures and encounter grater economic burden than matched control group despite having universal public health care policy in Sri Lanka. The results also suggest that out-of-pocket expenses on medicines and other pharmaceutical products as well as expenses on medical laboratory tests and other ancillary services are particularly higher for households with chronic NCD patients. The findings underline the importance of protecting households against the financial burden due to NCDs.