Conference Abstract | Volume 8, Abstract ELIC2025289 (Oral 144) | Published: 19 Aug 2025
Bosede Elizabeth Arogundade1,2,&, Cyril Erameh2, Adetumi Adetunji Subulade3, Osahon Otaigbe2, Benjamin Uzochukwu4, Danny Asogun2
1Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Abuja, Nigeria, 2Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, Irrua, Edo State, Nigeria, 3Federal Medical Centre, Owo, Ondo State, Nigeria, 4University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu, Enugu State, Nigeria
&Corresponding author: Bosede Elizabeth Arogundade, Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Abuja, Nigeria. Email: docboliza@gmail.com
Received: 04 Jun 2025, Accepted: 09 Jul 2025, Published: 19 Aug 2025
Domain: Infectious Disease Epidemiology
Keywords: Lassa fever, catastrophic health expenditure, coping mechanism, households, out-of-pocket, healthcare spending
©Bosede Elizabeth Arogundade et al. Journal of Interventional Epidemiology and Public Health (ISSN: 2664-2824). This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Cite this article: Bosede Elizabeth Arogundade et al., Catastrophic health expenditure and coping mechanisms among households affected by Lassa fever in Edo State, Nigeria. Journal of Interventional Epidemiology and Public Health. 2025;8(ConfProc5):00144. https://doi.org/10.37432/jieph-confpro5-00144
Lassa fever remains a significant public health concern in Nigeria, often resulting in high out-of-pocket healthcare spending. This study assesses the economic burden of Lassa fever on households, focusing on catastrophic health expenditure (CHE) and coping mechanisms employed to manage treatment costs. To determine the prevalence of catastrophic health expenditure among households with confirmed Lassa fever cases. To identify the coping strategies used by these households in managing the financial burden of illness.
A facility-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 64 households with confirmed Lassa fever cases in a referral centre in Edo State. CHE was measured using WHO’s 40% non-food expenditure and 10% total income thresholds. Coping mechanisms were classified on an ordinal scale from savings to asset sales. Associations between socioeconomic status and use of coping strategies were assessed using logistic regression.
At the 40% threshold, 90.3% of households experienced CHE; at the 10% income threshold, 98.4% experienced CHE. The most common coping mechanism was the use of savings/regular income (34.4%), while asset sales were least used. Lower socioeconomic households were 5.8 times more likely to resort to loans compared to upper-class households (p=0.017). Some households sold productive assets such as sewing machines and motorcycles, potentially worsening long-term poverty.
Lassa fever places a significant economic burden on affected households, with a high prevalence of CHE and reliance on detrimental coping mechanisms, especially among the poor. These findings highlight the urgent need for improved financial risk protection and disease-specific policy interventions to prevent impoverishment.
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