Abu-Zaineh

Publications

Assessing the causes of inequality in health care in PalestineBook chapterMohammad Abu-Zaineh et Awad Mataria, In: The Palestinian Economy: Theoretical and Practical Challenges, V. Gianni, M. Missaglia et F. Kattan (Eds.), 2010-01, Volume II, pp. 341-394, Pavia University Press, 2010
Contribution to the analysis of health equity: measurement and explanation of inequality and inequity in the health care sector in the context of developing countries: the palestinian caseBookMohammad Abu-Zaineh, 2009-10, 196 pages, VDM Verlag, 2009

"This is an exemplary PhD thesis. It shows the PhD candidate's thorough thinking and econometric skills, together with a sense of policy-related research work still ahead. Policy-wise, the thesis is bound to be influential in discussions about the future design of social health protection in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). Also, by putting a quote by John Rawls at the beginning of the thesis, Mr Abu-Zaineh lets us understand how challenging it is to the economics discipline to tackle the overall issue of equity". Professor Guy Carrain World Health Orginization

Equity in health care finance in Palestine: The triple effects revealedJournal articleMohammad Abu-Zaineh, Awad Mataria, Stéphane Luchini et Jean-Paul Moatti, Journal of Health Economics, Volume 28, Issue 6, pp. 1071-1080, 2009

This paper presents an application of the Urban and Lambert"upgraded-AJL Decomposition" approach that was designed to deal with the problem of close-income equals in equity analysis, and as applied to the area of health care finance. Contrary to most previous studies, vertical and horizontal inequities and the triple effects of inter-groups, intra-group and entire-group reranking of various financing schemes are estimated, with statistical significance calculated using the bootstrap method. Application is made on the three financing schemes present in the case of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Results demonstrate the relative importance of the three forms of reranking in determining overall inequality. The paper offers policy recommendations to limit the existing inequalities in the system and to enhance the capacity of the governmental insurance scheme.

Equity in health care financing in Palestine: The value-added of the disaggregate approachJournal articleMohammad Abu-Zaineh, Awad Mataria, Stéphane Luchini et Jean-Paul Moatti, Social Science & Medicine, Volume 66, Issue 11, pp. 2308-2320, 2008

This paper analyzes the redistributive effect and progressivity associated with the current health care financing schemes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, using data from the first Palestinian Household Health Expenditure Survey conducted in 2004. The paper goes beyond the commonly used “aggregate summary index approach” to apply a more detailed “disaggregate approach”. Such an approach is borrowed from the general economic literature on taxation, and examines redistributive and vertical effects over specific parts of the income distribution, using the dominance criterion. In addition, the paper employs a bootstrap method to test for the statistical significance of the inequality measures. While both the aggregate and disaggregate approaches confirm the pro-rich and regressive character of out-of-pocket payments, the aggregate approach does not ascertain the potential progressive feature of any of the available insurance schemes. The disaggregate approach, however, significantly reveals a progressive aspect, for over half of the population, of the government health insurance scheme, and demonstrates that the regressivity of the out-of-pocket payments is most pronounced among the worst-off classes of the population. Recommendations are advanced to improve the performance of the government insurance schemes to enhance its capacity in limiting inequalities in health care financing in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.