Introduction: Equity in household financial participation is one of the important goals of the health system. The purpose of this study is to calculate the extent of household’s exposer to catastrophic expenditures, and the degree of justice and participation in the financing of households and the impact of factors affecting participation in financing.
Methods: This descriptive and analytical study, which uses the secondary data of health accounts of East Azerbaijan province in 2018 to calculate the amount of out-of-pocket and household catastrophic expenditures. The sample of this study included 1721 households. The distribution of household income using the Gini coefficient and the distribution of health expenditures with index concentration and household fairness in financial contribution using the Kakwani index.
Result: The average out-of-pocket payment for households is 12,118,098.18 and the standard deviation is 4566976, which is higher in households in the top quintile than in the bottom quintile. 13.53% have incurred catastrophic expenditure. The Gini index was 0.25 the concentration index was 0.36 and the Kakwani index was 0.11.
Conclusion: Distributing health expenditures relative to income benefits the poor. And the impact of factors such as insurance and the presence of aged people in the household and education and age of the head of the household have a significant relationship with the level of participation in financing health costs. Therefore, it is recommended to expand the coverage and depth of basic insurance.