Navigating the Landscape of Child Health Insurance Coverage in Punjab, Pakistan: A Socioeconomic Perspective

Getting health insurance for children's health care appears to be on the rise around the world. Nonetheless, progress is sluggish, and several cases of infections in children remain unaddressed, resulting in child mortality. A deeper understanding of health insurance coverage can improve health care utilization. Therefore, this study aims to find the impact of child-specific, maternal, household-related, and regional variables on child health insurance coverage in Punjab, Pakistan. The study is based on microdata (of 35,453 children aged 5 to 17 years) obtained from the Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (MICS) to investigate the socioeconomic determinants of child insurance coverage. The study employed logistic regression and found that a child aged 10 to 14 was 15 percent less likely to have health insurance coverage than the reference category (i.e., child aged 5 to 9 years). A child with a functional disability had 1.3 times more chances to avail of health insurance than a child without any functional disabilities. Children from poorer households were 2.6 times more likely to have health insurance than those from the poorest households. The study concludes that an intervention based on raising maternal education levels, economic upliftment of households, and targeted support for the children of southern Punjab could improve child health insurance coverage in Punjab.