Up to now catastrophic and impoverishing payments have been seen as two alternative approaches to measuring financial protection in health. Building on the previous literature, the authors propose a unified methodology in which impoverishing and catastrophic payments are mutually exclusive...

This paper provides an overview of research on out-of-pocket health expenditures, reviewing the various summary measures and the results of multi-country studies using these measures. The paper presents estimates for 146 countries from all World Bank income groups for all summary measures, along...

Up to now catastrophic and impoverishing payments have been seen as two alternative approaches to measuring financial protection in health. Building on the previous literature, the authors propose a unified methodology in which impoverishing and catastrophic payments are mutually exclusive...

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a double shock - health and economic. As of March 1, 2021, COVID-19 has cost more than 2.5 million lives and triggered an economic recession surpassing any economic downturn since World War II. Part I of this paper explores the impact of this current...