Access to financial services whether credit, savings, or insurance enable many poor people to access better health care services. Many MFIs also provide targeted health care education for their clients to improve their nutrition, make them more aware of contagious diseases and preventive care, and provide information on existing health care services. Some MFIs have also recently begun to link up with formal insurance companies to provide health insurance to their clients.
* Studies on microfinance programs and their clients indicate the following impacts:
- A study of client households of CRECER, an MFI in Bolivia that provides clients basic health information in addition to financial services, showed higher rates of breast-feeding, rehydration therapy for children with diarrhea, and DPT immunizations among children, as compared with nonclient households.
See MkNelly and Dunford (Bolivia 1999).
- A similar study in Ghana showed higher rates of breast-feeding among MFI clients and better health outcomes among their year-old children, as compared with nonclients.
See MkNelly and Dunford (Ghana, 1998)
- In Uganda, clients of FOCCAS demonstrated better health-care practices: 95 percent used improved nutritional techniques for their children and 32 percent tried at least one AIDS prevention technique. Respective rates for non-clients were 72 percent and 16 percent.
See Barnes (1998).
- A comprehensive longitudinal study of BRAC clients in Bangladesh found that fewer members suffered from severe malnutrition compared with a control group of nonclients, and that the extent of severe malnutrition in client households decreased as the length of their MFI membership increased.
See Chowdhury and Bhuiya (2001).
- Also in Bangladesh, a World Bank study found that a 10 percent increase in credit to women MFI clients was associated with a 6.3 percent increase in mid-arm circumference of daughters, a common measure used to identify malnourished children.
See Pitt (2003).
- Two other studies in Bangladesh show that contraceptive use was significantly higher among Grameen clients (59 percent) than among non-clients (43 percent).
See Hashemi, Schuler, and Riley (1996) and Rahman et al. (2000).
*For additional information on microinsurance, click here.
http://www.microinsurancecentre.org/index.cfm