An account of disproportionate child healthcare utilization in Nigeria

Abstract

Adults are capable of self‐assessment of their health status and are at the rudimentary level, able to determine if they need to consume more of health services or not. This, however, lacks in children below the age of 5 years, and as such they rely on their parents and or guardians for healthcare utilization. The study acknowledges the mismatch between utilization and prevalence of illness across the country and the attendant inequality in healthcare utilization across regions. The study adopts the NDHS 2013, the Grossman Framework on the demand for health and the Logistic Regression Analysis, and found that higher maternal educational levels increase child healthcare utilization. Other factors include increased wealth, frequency of older mothers, vaccination and exclusive breastfeeding. Frequency of older children and larger household sizes were, however, found to reduce the probability of child healthcare utilization. The study finds strong regional variations across the country with utilization more enabled in some regions than others, under the same conditions, and recommends that households maintain a size they can cater for health‐wise. The study recommends an all‐inclusive health policy to cater for disparities across regions and the retraining of mothers since secondary education alone is requisite for child healthcare utilization.