Investigating the Situation of Inequality in Out-of-Pocket Payments for Oral and Dental Health Care in Ahvaz City Households

Financing in the health system will be fair when the costs related to health care for households are distributed according to their ability to pay and not according to the risk of disease. The aim of the present study was to investigate the inequality situation in households’ out-of-pocket payments for oral and dental health care in the Ahvaz, Iran households.

The present study is a cross-sectional study in which 715 households living in Ahvaz city in 2022-2023 were studied with stratified-cluster sampling. The required data was collected through a questionnaire to calculate the reliability, the questionnaire was implemented on a group of 10 households in a seven-day period, and their correlation coefficient was 0.89. Stata and Excel software were used to analyze the data.

According to this study, the proportion of oral and dental health expenses from the income of households in quintiles 1 to 5 is 69.41, 45.29, 27.77, 25.38 and 17.7 percent, respectively. Also, the Gini coefficient is equal to 0.384, the concentration index is equal to 0.174, and the Kakwani index is equal to -0.21. Also, the average percentage of out-of-pocket payments for dental services was 93.62%.

The out-of-pocket payments share of income for dental care was higher in the poorest quintile and it can be said that there is a downward trend in financing through out-of-pocket payments for oral and dental care. Therefore, health managers and policymakers should reduce the severity of the downward in financing by expanding insurance coverage and protecting the poor against unwanted oral and dental health expenses.