Background
Health insurance has the potential to improve access to health care and protect people from the financial risks of diseases. However, health insurance coverage is often low, particularly for people most in need of protection, including children and other vulnerable populations.
Objectives
To assess the effectiveness of strategies for expanding health insurance coverage in vulnerable populations.
Search methods
We searched Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), part of
The Cochrane Library
. www.thecochranelibrary.com (searched 2 November 2012), PubMed (searched 1 November 2012), EMBASE (searched 6 July 2012), Global Health (searched 6 July 2012), IBSS (searched 6 July 2012), WHO Library Database (WHOLIS) (searched 1 November 2012), IDEAS (searched 1 November 2012), ISI‐Proceedings (searched 1 November 2012),OpenGrey (changed from OpenSIGLE) (searched 1 November 2012), African Index Medicus (searched 1 November 2012), BLDS (searched 1 November 2012), Econlit (searched 1 November 2012), ELDIS (searched 1 November 2012), ERIC (searched 1 November 2012), HERDIN NeON Database (searched 1 November 2012), IndMED (searched 1 November 2012), JSTOR (searched 1 November 2012), LILACS(searched 1 November 2012), NTIS (searched 1 November 2012), PAIS (searched 6 July 2012), Popline (searched 1 November 2012), ProQuest Dissertation &Theses Database (searched 1 November 2012), PsycINFO (searched 6 July 2012), SSRN (searched 1 November 2012), Thai Index Medicus (searched 1 November 2012), World Bank (searched 2 November 2012), WanFang (searched 3 November 2012), China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CHKD‐CNKI) (searched 2 November 2012).
In addition, we searched the reference lists of included studies and carried out a citation search for the included studies via Web of Science to find other potentially relevant studies.
Selection criteria
Randomised controlled trials (RCTs), non‐randomised controlled trials (NRCTs), controlled before‐after (CBA) studies and Interrupted time series (ITS) studies that evaluated the effects of strategies on increasing health insurance coverage for vulnerable populations. We defined strategies as measures to improve the enrolment of vulnerable populations into health insurance schemes. Two categories and six specified strategies were identified as the interventions.
Data collection and analysis
At least two review authors independently extracted data and assessed the risk of bias. We undertook a structured synthesis.
Main results
We included two studies, both from the United States. People offered health insurance information and application support by community‐based case managers were probably more likely to enrol their children into health insurance programmes (risk ratio (RR) 1.68, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.44 to 1.96, moderate quality evide...