Disease-specific public subsidies are increasingly being introduced in
low-income countries to prevent healthcare payment-related financial catastrophe.
Assessing the incidence and intensity of catastrophic out-of-pocket spending by
disease type may reveal how far existing public subsidies that target specific diseases
are protecting the population from the out-of-pocket (OOP) spending. This thesis
describes and analyzes the level of household OOP spending in urban Nepal, and the
risk factors for catastrophic expenditure by disease type and for distress financing.