Background: World Health Organization’s agenda on Universal Health Coverage (UHC)
calls for a protected accessibility to health services. Globally, 1.3 billion
people lack access to health services and around 61% are on informal
employment. The informal employment exposes individuals
to more risks that increase the demand for access to health care services. Health
insurance enables households to access
health services while being protected against catastrophic health care
expenditures. Challenges in accessing health insurance hampered the uptake to
health insurance and this has led to an increased morbidity, mortality and
catastrophic health care expenditures. Objective: This study examines
the barriers to accessibility of health insurance among the informal sector
workers. Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed from September to December 2020 to 889
informal sector workers. Data was collected by using questionnaire, multi-stage
sampling technique was used and the respondents were randomly selected from 12
streets. Chi-square test and multivariate logistic regression were used for
analysis through the use of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS)
version 23. Results: Most of the respondents were uninsured (91.1%),
more than half (63.6%) were male and the mean age of most respondents was 34.8 years (SD ± 10.4). The barriers to
accessibility of health insurance are mistrust of insurance schemes, inadequate
information about health insurance, and inaccessibility of health insurance
offices and unaffordability of insurance premiums. Conclusion: Barriers
to accessibility of health insurance are practical and they require policy
intervention. Subsidized insurance programmes and improvement of mobile based
insurance and improved strategies on information dissemination on insurance
information will facilitate access and hence
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