Investigating the influence of community health insurance on health seeking behaviors and demand for maternal healthcare services in Nigeria

The rate of maternal mortality in Nigeria remains high despite recent worldwide success in reducing it. Data from the World Bank suggests that maternal mortality rate (MMR) is about 917 per 100,000 for Nigeria and this is only second to India globally. Hence, in this study, we investigate the research question of to what extent can community health insurance influence maternal health in Nigeria by looking at aspects of maternal health such as health seeking behaviors of, and demand for maternal healthcare services among women in Nigeria The data utilized for the study was sourced from the 2013 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS), while estimations were done using Propensity Score Matching and Nearest Neighbor Matching. The result from the estimations shows that the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) reveals that participating in a Community Health Insurance (CHI) scheme improves the health seeking behavior of a woman by about 17% compared to when she does not participate. The result further reveals that those who participated in the scheme were likely to have 58% increased antenatal care visits compared to when they do not participate. This study concludes that CHI is protective of maternal health. It is likely to improve health seeking behavior of women in Nigeria by reducing out‐of‐pocket payment for health services. Further recommendations are also discussed.