Health Insurance and Health Care Demand Pattern among Staff and Students of Selected Universities in Southwestern Nigeria

Background: Providing accessible and affordable healthcare services is a challenge for most developing economies including Nigeria. Currently, about 25-50% of all sick children and adults in Nigeria do not receive needed healthcare, while about 100 million live below the poverty line. The general poor state of the nation’s healthcare services, the excessive dependence and pressure on government for provision of health facilities have motivated the present study. This study was therefore designed to identify the determinants of healthcare demand pattern, with a focus on the role of health insurance among staff and students of selected universities in southwestern Nigeria.

Methods: This study relies on cross-sectional data collected from four universities covering four states of Southwestern Nigeria namely: Olabisi Onabanjo University, University of Ibadan, Obafemi Awolowo University, and Ekiti State University. A three-stage sampling techniques was applied in selecting 800 staff and students, while data were collected using structured questionnaire. The data was analyzed using SPSS v 20 and STATA v 12.1.

Findings: Altogether, 47.6% of the respondents were staff while 52.4% were students. The overall proportion of insured staff and students were more than the uninsured staff and students. Also, the usage of the university’s healthcare center or hospital was observed to be higher (43.9%) than any other healthcare facility, although more than half of the participants (57.8%) that chose this provider are female. From the regression results, it was evident that health insurance and gender among other factors have positive and significant impact on the healthcare demand of staff and students of universities in Nigeria.

Conclusion: Thus, policy makers should re-intensify the massive public awareness and education on the benefits of health insurance with the aim of improving demand for healthcare in Nigeria. Besides, for maximum efficiency, the public awareness should necessarily be gender-focused.