IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/afrdev/v31y2019i1p87-98.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of Household Socioeconomic Status on the Demand for Child Health Care Services

Author

Listed:
  • Eric Arthur

Abstract

The health of the child is an important factor for proper childhood development. Unfortunately, efforts to improve child health in many countries have not yielded the desired results as many children do not receive appropriate health care, hence contributing to high child mortality and morbidity from avoidable causes. To address this problem, it is important that we understand the factors that drive the demand for child health care services. This study, employing the binary and multinomial logistic regression models, examines the effect of household socioeconomic status on the demand for child health care in Ghana, Kenya and Zambia using data from the 2014 Demographic and Health Surveys. The results indicate that the likelihood of seeking appropriate health care for the child is higher when both parents make decisions. The findings further indicate that the odds of seeking treatment for the child falls with the birth order and age of the child, but increases with household wealth, insurance status and proximity to the health facility. Working women are more likely to demand child health care than their counterparts who are unemployed. Our results, therefore, suggest that improving child health will need the participation of both parents in the household on such decisions. Besides, there is the need to educate parents on the importance of seeking appropriate care for all the children born irrespective of the birth order and age of the child. There should also be deliberate efforts to improve the economic lot of households to enhance their purchasing power and encourage them to participate in health insurance schemes to enable effective utilization of health care services for the child in the efforts to improve child health.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric Arthur, 2019. "The Effect of Household Socioeconomic Status on the Demand for Child Health Care Services," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 31(1), pages 87-98, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:afrdev:v:31:y:2019:i:1:p:87-98
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-8268.12365
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8268.12365
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-8268.12365?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alfred Kechia Mukong & Justine Burns, 2019. "Bargaining Power within Couples and Health Care Provider Choice in Tanzania," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 31(3), pages 380-392, September.
    2. Joseph, Magashi & Miho, Asela, 2020. "Household Socioeconomic Status and Health Care Demand for Childhood Fever and Diarrhea in Tanzania," African Journal of Economic Review, African Journal of Economic Review, vol. 8(3), November.
    3. Gameli Adika, 2021. "HIV/AIDS and child malnutrition in eastern and southern Africa," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 33(1), pages 79-90, March.
    4. Gloria Essilfie & Joshua Sebu & Samuel Kobina Annim, 2020. "Women's empowerment and child health outcomes in Ghana," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 32(2), pages 200-215, June.
    5. M. Boubacar Bathily & Omar Sene, 2021. "Décomposition des sources d'inégalité d'accès à la santé de l'enfant: Une analyse comparative de quelques pays d'Afrique Subsaharienne," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 33(2), pages 221-233, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:afrdev:v:31:y:2019:i:1:p:87-98. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/afdbgci.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.