Summary |
This volume is about managing risk. Not the risk of national or man-made disasters but the risk of illness. The developing world is plagued by many of the historical scourges of poverty: infectious disease, disability, and premature death. As countries pass through demographic and epidemiological transition, they face a new wave of health challenges from chronic diseases and accidents.
In this respect, illness has both a predictable and an unpredictable dimension. Illness is predictable in that as people age, most will experience a period of illness and disability before dying. The overall burden of illness and aggregate financial consequences are well-known. But the impact on individuals, households, and local communities is much more varied.
Contributors to this volume emphasize that the public sector has an important role to play in the health sector, but they demonstrate that the private sector also plays a role in a context in which private spending and delivery of health services often composes 80 percent of total health expenditure. Managing risks in the private sector begins at the household level.
Private voluntary health insurance is merely an extension of such nongovernmental ways to deal with the risk of illness and its impoverishing effects in low-and middle-income countries.
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