The Determinants of Turkey Household Catastrophic Health Expenditures: A Different Approach by Data Mining

This study aims to determine socioeconomic, demographic, and household characteristics that affect Turkish household catastrophic health expenditure (CHE). Data gathered by TurkStat belonging to 40,033 households for the years 2009-2012 were used in the analysis. In the study, CHE was defined as household health expenditures that were 40% (or above) greater than the capacity pay of the household. CHAID analysis was used to determine characteristics affecting Turkish household CHE. According to the CHAID analysis; income, presence of a sick/disabled person, residential area, household size, age, education level and gender of the household head, presence of individuals aged 65+, presence of people between the ages of zero and five, and access to health institutions have been observed to affect CHE, while the marital status, age, and employment status of the head of the household, or the household type do not affect CHE. The proportion of households exposed to CHE was 0.62%, and the proportion of households making out-of-pocket health expenditure (OOPHE) was 62.71%. It was especially observed that households with low income, with sick/disabled individuals, and those with difficult access to healthcare facilities are more likely to be exposed to CHE. None of the households exposed to CHE has supplementary health insurance.