Methodological Issues to Consider When Collecting Data to Estimate Poverty Impact in Economic Evaluations in Low‐income and Middle‐income Countries
这篇论文讨论了在低收入和中等收入国家收集患者费用数据以评估健康干预对贫困影响时面临的方法学挑战，并提出了一个框架来帮助研究者标准化和透明地报告数据收集方法。
Out-of-pocket spending is increasingly recognized as an important barrier to accessing health care, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) where a large portion of health expenditure comes from out-of-pocket payments. Emerging universal healthcare policies prioritize reduction of poverty impact such as catastrophic and impoverishing healthcare expenditure. Poverty impact is therefore increasingly evaluated alongside and within economic evaluations to estimate the impact of specific health interventions on poverty. However, data collection for these metrics can be challenging in intervention-based contexts in LMICs because of study design and practical limitations. Using a set of case studies, this letter identifies methodological challenges in collecting patient cost data in LMIC contexts. These components are presented in a framework to encourage researchers to consider the implications of differing approaches in data collection and to report their approach in a standardized and transparent way.