Influence of social protection on access to health care among elderly persons in informal settlements in Nakuru Town, Kenya

Abstract

The objective of the study is to analyse the influence of social protection on access to health care among elderly persons in informal settlements Nakuru Town, Kenya. The study was based on the Disengagement theory and utilized a descriptive research design to target individuals of 70 years and above, within the informal settlements in Nakuru Town, Kenya. Cluster and simple random sampling techniques were used to select 399 respondents from a target population of 248,785 elderly persons. Data was collected from the sample using a semi-structured questionnaire and analysed using descriptive statistics, cross-tabulation with chi-square, and the thematic content analysis method. Quantitative analysis was aided by Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 27 software. Results showed that the majority of the respondents (70.3%) had low access to health care services. Access to health care services is influenced by social protection programmes specifically cash transfers, government interventions in health care, and retirement benefits. Based on these findings, the study recommends that policymakers should create awareness regarding the existence of government interventions such as health insurance subsidy programme (HISP) and the importance of enrolling to retirement benefit schemes and saving for old age.