Abstract
BackgroundAccess to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services is critical for such outcomes as pregnancy and birth, prenatal and neonatal mortality, maternal morbidity and mortality, and prevention of vertical transmission of infections like HIV. Health facilities are typically set up where they can efficiently serve the nearby targeted population. However, the actual utilization of health care can be complicated as people sometimes bypass the closest or nearby facilities for various reasons such as service quality. A better understanding of how people actually utilize health services can benefit future health resource allocation as well as health program planning.MethodsIn this study, we use prenatal care as an example of a basic, widely available service to investigate women’s choice and bypassing of SRH facilities as well as potential influencing factors at the geographic, clinic, household, and individual levels. The data come from a population-based survey of women of reproductive age in rural Mozambique. The spatial pattern of utilization of health clinics for prenatal care is explored by geographical information system (GIS)-based spatial analysis. Logistic regression is fitted to test the hypotheses regarding the effect of distance, service quality, and household/individual-level factors on the bypassing of the nearest clinic.ResultsThe results indicate that most women living near clinics tend to utilize the closest facilities for prenatal care and those who travel farther mainly do so to seek better services. Further, for women who live far from a clinic (> 5.5 km), service quality still plays an important role in the facility bypassing while the effect of distance is no longer significant. The bypassing of nearest facility is also affected by individual characteristics such as age, HIV status, and household economic conditions.ConclusionsThe findings help to better understand health facility choice and bypassing in developing settings, in general, and in resource-limited Sub-Saharan settings, in particular. They offer valuable guidance for future health resource allocation and health service planning.
Highlights
Access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services is critical for such outcomes as pregnancy and birth, prenatal and neonatal mortality, maternal morbidity and mortality, and prevention of vertical transmission of infections like HIV
About 30.8% respondents bypassed the nearest clinic for prenatal care
In terms of the availability of health services, almost one-half of respondents (47.8%) respondents do not have any clinic within 5 km of their residence, and 7.9% respondents need to travel more than 10 km to reach a clinic
Summary
Access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services is critical for such outcomes as pregnancy and birth, prenatal and neonatal mortality, maternal morbidity and mortality, and prevention of vertical transmission of infections like HIV. The actual utilization of health care can be complicated as people sometimes bypass the closest or nearby facilities for various reasons such as service quality. A better understanding of how people utilize health services can benefit future health resource allocation as well as health program planning. One way to understand health service utilization is to examine health facility choice and the bypassing behaviour, which can shed light on which facilities are underused, as well as the characteristics of individuals and facilities affecting the decision-making regarding healthcare usage [6,7,8,9]. It has been argued that factors contributing to the bypassing of health facilities vary across different healthcare systems, regions, population groups and individuals. The impact of some factors, such as geographic access, service quality and cost, age and income, has been consistently shown in numerous empirical studies [6, 7, 9, 13,14,15]
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