Modeling Healthcare Expenditure among Iranian Households

This study models healthcare expenditure in household level with the aim of utilizing enough health goods and services in Iran. For this purpose, first suitable econometrics methods for health sector are investigated and then main determinants of households’ healthcare expenditure are introduced by using the sample selection model. Model estimation has been based on the socio-economic and demographic information of 38513 Iranian households, derived from household’s income- expenditure survey (HIES) in 2011. The results show that the increasing of household's members (children, youth and elderly) and women proportion, to be married of household's head, smoking, having health insurance and living in urban and more development areas encourage households to purchase health goods and services in respective market. On the other hand, household's healthcare expenditure will increase if household consumes more amount of Tobacco, family number, especially the number of elderly members is more and the larger proportion of family members belongs to women. Moreover, households that belong to middle income groups, and who have health insurance and their header is married spend higher expenditure to purchase the health goods and services. This result is true about households which have house; their members are more educated and live in urban areas and provinces where more developed in terms of health facilities.