Health Poverty Trend among families with child using Health Financial Contribution and cohort approach: 1984-2012

Background and Aims: Health is an important dimension in analyzing multidimensional child poverty. High life expenditure imposed on families has lead to the household’s health poverty. Considering the importance of childhood and measuring health poverty indices to inform planners and towards distributive effects of policy strategies, as well as, family welfare, this paper tends to measure and analyse the trends of health poverty of Iranian “households with child” from 1984-2012.Materials and Methods: In this trend study, statistical data on household budgets were considered to measure health poverty in households with child (using FGt index). The results were analyzed using STATA and Excel Software.Results: The results showed that the poverty rate was the highest in terms of all age group’s health in 1999. While, the health poverty rate among families with children in the age group of 11-15-year-old showed an upward trend in recent periods (the end of the fourth development goal and beginning of fifth Program), it was associated with fluctuations in other age groups.Conclusion: Overall, health poverty rate was high in all age groups although it showed high fluctuations. The high fluctuations of the health poverty index during the development plans indicate that stable and consistent policy has not been developed to reduce households facing catastrophic health expenditure. At the end of this research, some recommendations have been offered to reduce the amount of household’s health poverty.Key words: health poverty, household financial contribution, cohort approach, chil

Why has the taxing policy on sugar sweetened beverages not reduced their purchase in Iranian households?

ObjectiveThis study aimed at analyzing the effectiveness of the policy of taxing Sugar-Sweetened Beverages (SSBs) on their purchases during the last decade in Iranian households.MethodsThe present mixed method study was done in 2017 in four phases: (1) A meta-review of the fiscal policies during the last decade, (2) Collecting existing data on soft drinks’ production, price, and household expenditure during the last decade, (3) Conducting 19 semi-structured interviews with key informants, and (4) Facilitating a national meeting to achieve a consensus on the recommendations and future implications.ResultsDocument reviews showed that based on the Permanent Provisions of National Development Plans of Iran, the Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MOHME) should announce the list of health threatening products to increase taxation for them. The government is allowed to impose taxes on domestically produced and imported SSBs. The average household expenditure on SSBs increased in the rural and urban households of Iran during 2006–2016 in spite of taxation. In the different key informants’ opinion, only value-added tax (VAT) was implemented among different fiscal policies, and the other parts, including tax and tolls were debated.ConclusionThe present research findings further proposed some suggestions for increasing the effectiveness of financial policies in reducing the prevalence of NCDs in Iran