Beryl Maritim

My research agenda focuses on understanding how health financing reforms can be designed and implemented to advance universal health coverage (UHC) in low- and middle-income countries. I examine contributory mechanisms (such as social health insurance), subsidy programmes for the vulnerable, as well as healthcare purchasing reforms-and how these shape equity, access, financial protection, and overall health system performance.

Methodologically, my work integrates supply- and demand-side perspectives using mixed methods. On the supply side, I examine reform implementation processes, stakeholder incentives, institutional capacity, and governance arrangements shaping the design and implementation of reforms. On the demand side, I focus on affordability, access, citizen engagement, and how people experience and interpret health system arrangements, including questions of trust and social solidarity.

A central future focus is understanding how health financing reforms evolve under conditions of fiscal constraint and changing external aid landscapes, and the implications of these dynamics for equity and financial protection. Another growing component of my work leverages population-based cohorts, including the continental platform within the Africa Population Cohorts Consortium (APCC), alongside routine health system data to examine how financing reforms affect households over time. These platforms enable longitudinal analysis of household financial risk, service utilisation, and the lived impacts of policy change, and support methodological work to develop feasible indicators for assessing financial risk protection and service coverage using cohort data.

How we pay for healthcare

Beryl researches healthcare financing in low- and middle-income countries, focusing on protecting households from financial hardship due to medical costs. Her work examines equity in public health insurance programmes, and informs policy reforms to better target support. She addresses key challenges in achieving fair, sustainable universal health coverage in Kenya.