Supply-Side Barriers to the Use of Public Healthcare Facilities for Childhood Illness Care in Rural Zambia: A Cross-Sectional Study Linking Data from a Healthcare Facility Census to a Household Survey

Keiji Mochida, Daisuke Nonaka, Jason Wamulume and Jun Kobayashi
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Keiji Mochida: Graduate School of Health Sciences, University of the Ryukyus, 207 Uehara, Nishihara-cho, Nakagami-gun, Okinawa 903-0125, Japan
Daisuke Nonaka: Graduate School of Health Sciences, University of the Ryukyus, 207 Uehara, Nishihara-cho, Nakagami-gun, Okinawa 903-0125, Japan
Jason Wamulume: Department of Physical Planning and Medical Technologies, Ministry of Health, Ndeke House, Haile Selassie Avenue, Lusaka P.O. Box 30205, Zambia
Jun Kobayashi: Graduate School of Health Sciences, University of the Ryukyus, 207 Uehara, Nishihara-cho, Nakagami-gun, Okinawa 903-0125, Japan

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 10, 1-14

Abstract: Child mortality due to malaria and diarrhea can be reduced if proper treatment is received timely at healthcare facilities, but various factors hinder this. The present study assessed the associations between the use of public healthcare facilities among febrile/diarrheal children in rural Zambia and supply-side factors (i.e., the distance from the village to the nearest facility and the availability of essential human resources and medical equipment at the facility). Data from the Demographic and Health Survey 2018 and the Health Facility Census 2017 were linked. Generalized linear mixed models were used to assess the associations, controlling for clustering and other variables. The median distances to the nearest facility were 4.5 km among 854 febrile children and 4.6 km among 813 diarrheal children. Children who were over 10 km away from the facility were significantly less likely to use it, compared to those within 5 km (fever group: odds ratio (OR) = 0.36, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 0.20–0.66; diarrhea group: OR = 0.30, 95% CI = 0.18–0.51). The availability of human resources and equipment was, however, not significantly associated with facility use. Poor geographic access could be a critical barrier to facility use among children in rural Zambia.

Keywords: physical access; human resources; equipment; fever; diarrhea; under-five children; Zambia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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