The Pan African Medical Journal (Dec 2020)
Prediction of out-of-pocket health expenditures in Rwanda using machine learning techniques
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: in Rwanda, the estimated out of pocket health expenditure has been increased from 24.46% in 2000 to 26% in 2015. Despite the existence of guideline in estimation of out of pocket health expenditures provided by WHO (2018), the estimation of out of pocket health expenditure still have difficulties in many countries. METHODS: the purpose of this paper was to figure out the best model which predict the out of pocket health expenditures in Rwanda during the process of considering various techniques of machine learning by using the Rwanda Integrated Living Conditions Surveys (EICV5) of 14580 households (2018). RESULTS: our findings presented the models which predict the out of pocket health expenditures with higher accuracy. Furthermore, machine learning techniques were used to judge which predictor variable was important in our prediction process and comparison of the performance of the algorithms through train accuracy and test accuracy metric measures. Finally, the findings show that the tests of accuracy of the models were 50.16% for MARS model, 74% decision tree model, 87% for treenet model, 83% for random forest model, gradient boosting 81% predictor total consumption played a significant role in the model for all tested models. CONCLUSION: finally, we conclude that the total consumption of the household came out to be the most important variable which is consistently true to all the algorithms tested. The findings from our study have policy implications for policy makers in Rwanda and in the world generally. We recommend the government to significantly increase public spending on health. Domestic financial resources are key to moving closer to universal health coverage (UHC) and should be increased on a long-term basis. In addition, these results will be useful for the future to assess the out of pocket health expenditures dataset.
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