ArticlePLOS global public health2026
Financial burden of severe childhood illness on households in Lao People's Democratic Republic: A prospective cohort study.
Article in PLOS global public health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR) introduced a National Health Insurance (NHI) scheme in 2016 to all provinces except Vientiane Capital City. We describe the financial impact on households related to treatment of severe childhood illness at a hospital covered by NHI, and one without NHI. We conducted a prospective cohort study (2022-2024) in Lao PDR of children aged one month to <15 years admitted with severe illness at Salavan Provincial Hospital (SPH) with NHI, and National Children's Hospital (NCH) without NHI, with two-month follow-up post-discharge. Illness-related direct and indirect costs were collected. We calculated household out-of-pocket (OOP) costs, impoverishment and catastrophic health expenditure (CHE, > 10% annual household expenditure) rates and analysed relative risk (RR) of CHE by socioeconomic status. 200 participants were recruited from each hospital with demographic differences observed between hospitals in urban residence (NCH 87.0%, SPH 14.5%), maternal education (primary level: NCH 95.9%, SPH 76.3%) and wealth status (wealthiest quintile: NCH 79.0%, SPH 20.5%). Median household OOP costs were higher at NCH (USD290.6 [IQR 206.9-422.9]) compared to SPH (USD92.4 [IQR 56.3-52.9]). Impoverishment at two months post-discharge was 0.5% (95%CI 0.0-3.0) at NCH and 10.2% (95%CI 6.2-15.4) at SPH. CHE rates were 34.5% (95%CI 27.9-41.1) at NCH and 26.0% (95%CI 19.9-32.1) at SPH, with higher RR in the poorest versus wealthiest households (NCH: RR 6.6, 95%CI 4.5-9.5; SPH: RR 4.9, 95%CI 1.7-13.7) and households with no formal maternal education versus secondary education (NCH: RR 2.6, 95%CI 1.2-5.5; SPH: RR 4.6, 95%CI 1.92-11.1). Direct medical costs were lower at the provincial hospital where NHI is available, but total OOP costs and CHE rates were high at both hospitals, particularly among disadvantaged households. Additional interventions are required to prevent severe illness and provide financial protection for socioeconomically disadvantaged groups to reduce health-related economic burden on households in Lao PDR.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.