Trixy Mae F.

Hortillano N25

I. Title/Topic
THE EFFECT OF HOUSEHOLD WASTE DISPOSAL ON HOUSEHOLD HEALTH EXPENDITURE IN GHANA

II. Research Findings

In this article, the researchers seek to investigate the effect of household waste disposal
on health expenditures and the socio-economic and demographic factors that significantly
influence household healthcare expenditure in Ghana. They seek to investigate the effect of
household solid and liquid waste disposal on household health expenditures will add to existing
knowledge; the findings of this study are essential in helping the government agencies, policy
makers, and other stakeholders to design and tailor policies to tackle household waste
management and disposal.
In this article, the study sought to contribute to the growing body of environment and
health economic literature through the investigation of the effect of household solid and liquid
waste disposal on household healthcare expenditure.
In this article, the study adopted Grossman’s (1972) Theoretical Model regarding the
simplified household utility function as the model for healthcare expenditure for this study. As
for their empirical framework of the study, the researchers followed the frameworks advanced
by Parker and Wong (1997), Okunade et al. (2010), Molla et al. (2017) and Qosaj et al. (2018)
where healthcare (dependent variable), which was centered at zero, was estimated to be within
the Tobit Regression Model. The researchers’ specified and estimated household health
expenditure model included the explanatory variables such as household form of solid waste
disposal, type of toilet facility used by the household, household’s socio-economic and
demographic factors and household head’s characteristics. For the basis of the researcher’s
analysis, they’ve used the data from the 7th round of the Ghana Living Standards Surveys that
was conducted in 2016/2017 by the Ghana Statistical Service.

III. Conclusion
The findings on the household waste disposal’s effects on healthcare expenditure among
household in Ghana wherein the burning, public dumping, and indiscriminate dumbing of
garbage by a household all positively induce household healthcare expenditure with the effect
of burning and indiscriminate dumping being statistically significant. The results indicate that
households that dispose of waste indiscriminately and burning are 116.50 percentage points and
36.55 percentage points respectively, more likely to spend on healthcare. The findings also
revealed that households with no toilet facility would use pit latrine, KVIP and public toilet that
are more likely to incur higher healthcare expenditure as compared to a household using water
closet.
The results after examining household’s socio-economic and demographic factors
influencing healthcare expenditure in Ghana identified household income, the age of the
household head, sex of the household head, household head’s years of formal education,
household head’s illness reporting and household head’s hospitalization as the key predictors
found to be significant drivers of household healthcare expenditure in Ghana.

IV. Analysis
This study has been proven to be useful with regards to conducting community surveys
and/or home visits with regards to the proper waste disposal and other factors that could affect
the health of households. This study showed that household’s healthcare is a dependent variable
that is affected by the household head’s capabilities to provide expenditure for healthcare.
Head’s capabilities includes their age, sex, education, illness reporting and hospitalizations, which
could affect their ability or potential to sustain their needs regarding healthcare, which should
be put in consideration with the surveys and/or home visits among households. Healthcare of
households can be the cause of effect of improper waste disposal on the environment and
members of the household/s. Lack of expenditure of the community on Waste Management
should be addressed as it would reduce the effect of waste on the environment, health, etc.

V. Reference
Wissi, W. (2020). THE EFFECT OF HOUSEHOLD WASTE DISPOSAL ON HOUSEHOLD HEALTH
EXPENDITURE IN GHANA. University of Ghana, Legon Department of Economics. Retrieved from
http://ugspace.ug.edu.gh