Community Based Health Insurance Scheme: Knowledge, Concerns and Uptake amongst Residents of Tofa Commemity in Ajeromi-ffelodua Local Government Area, Lagos State.

Abstract

Background/Objectives: Community based social health insurance has been designed to achieve Universal Health Coverage in many low income, middle income countries. This is primarily targeted 1owards people in the informal scctor. In Nigeria, Coverage with CBHIS
has been low, with a problem of under-utilization as tewer people are willing to contribute to the scheme. This study was done to assess the Knowledge, concerns and uptake of the CBHIS among residents of Tolu community.

Materials and Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study. Multi-stage random sampling technique was used 10 select 348 respondents used for this study. Data was collected using interviewer-administered questionnaires and analysis was carried out using Epi Info 7 Statistical software,

Results: Only 33.1% of ihe respondents had good knowledge of the scheme. Few respondents had concerns about the scheme; with the most frequent (12.1%) being the premium was too high. A low Uptake of the Scheme was observed, only 10.6% of the respondents were enrolled and had renewed their premium while 8.4% though enrolled had not renewed their premium, over half (51.7%) reported thal they had not renewed their premium because they had not been ill since enrollment. There was a statistically significant association between knowledge and uptake of CBHIS.

Conclusion: This study shows that fully enrolled users were more likely 10 be respondents with good knowledge. Focused awareness campaigns on the concepts of CBHIS are recommended to enable a proper grasp of the scheme. This should translate into an improvement in the uptake of the scheme.