Determinants of child morbidity and factors governing utilization of child health care: evidence from rural India

Abstract

Prevention as well as effective treatment of respiratory infections and diarrhoea depends on several individual, household and community level factors. The objective of this article is to estimate the role played by such factors in determining the occurrence of such diseases and utilization of formal health care for children under the age of three in India. The major findings are briefly enlisted as follows. First, a woman with greater educational qualification and autonomy in terms of her power to take decisions on her own, control over household resources and complete freedom to move beyond the confines of her household exerts a significant influence on the probability of seeking care. In addition to this, formal care is more likely to be sought for children whose mothers are more exposed to the media. Programmes devised to enhance utilization of formal health care for children should be targeted to catering for the needs of the vulnerable group i.e. female child, predominantly, residing in households belonging to Scheduled Tribe. In addition to this, children belonging to Muslim households are at higher risk of contracting the diseases but there is no significant difference in their health seeking behaviour as compared to other religious groups.

Notes

¹ Annual Report of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, 2001–2002, Chapter 6, p. 1.

² http://www.indiastat.com.

³ http://www.who.int/child-adolescent-health.

⁴ http://www.indiastat.com.

⁵ We have only focused on the most recent birth of the mother.

⁶ Both models, estimating the probability of incidence of the respective diseases and that of seeking formal care, are estimated using Probit regression(s). The detailed description of the econometric methodology can be found in Greene (2003).

⁷ The goods chosen to be nonluxury are pressure cooker, clock, fan, bicycle, sewing machine and radio while luxury items included telephone, refrigerator, colour television, black and white television, car and motorcycle.

⁸ The impact of a child's age on her morbidity status has also been estimated with dummies for child age rather than age as a count variable in occurrence of disease equation (results are not reported in Table 3 but is available on request). The findings are similar to those reported here. Data pertaining to the incidence of both diseases is given for children in the age group of 0–3 years. Treating children in the age group of 2–3 as the base category, we find that children belonging to lower age groups (0–1 and 1–2) have a significantly higher probability of ‘Diarrhea’. Results also hold for ‘Cough’, but for the 0–1 age group.

⁹ Marginal effects for demand for childcare has been calculated only for the significant (at least till 10% level) explanatory variables in Model 2.1 in Table 4.

¹⁰ Details on the econometric methodology can be seen from Greene (2003).