Determinants of Household Healthcare Choice Behavior: A Study in Purulia District, West Bengal

Santanu Bhattacharya; Dr. Sebak Kumar Jana

doi:10.55524/ijirem.2022.9.3.1

Abstract

A well organised healthcare system is one of the pillars of a society’s social and economic infrastructure. Efficient healthcare system is one of the important indicators of development. In times of global epidemics Covid-19 healthcare seeking behaviour has become an important issue. People adjust their treatment modalities based on the health system. Poor families in particular have very limited access to medical care; they usually rely on government medical facilities because they cannot afford private treatment. On the other hand, even in rural areas, access to medical care limited due to lack of additional healthcare facilities. Therefore in rural area’s it is very important to diagnose the factors that influence the health seeking behaviour of the household. The Specific objectives of the study are to investigate health status of households across Purulia district using secondary data from NFHS- 4 (2015-2016) and to determine the factors that influencing health seeking behaviour of the sample households. We have visited randomly selected three villages of Kashipur block in Purulia district, West Bengal and surveyed two hundred households. To determine the factors that influencing household healthcare seeking behaviour we have fitted logit model. The explanatory variables monthly average family income, household head’s education, number of members in a household above 60 years, number of members in a household below 6 years, having at least one member who consume medicines during the whole year, effect of Covid-19 on income, effect of Covid-19 on health, social category, village residence have positive significant impact on the probability of household members seeking treatment from both government and private places. We consider ST as our base and find that the general community has significant impact on the household members receiving treatment from both government and private places. From the result we find that the major source of income of the sample households has no significant impact on the healthcare seeking behaviour of sample households.

Keywords

Health seeking behaviour, medical care, NFHS- 4, Kashipur block, Logit model.

References

Ahmed, S. M., Adams, A. M., Chowdhury, M., & Bhuiya, A. (2000). Gender, socioeconomic development and health-seeking behaviour in Bangladesh. Social science & medicine, 51(3), 361-371.
Ahmed, S. M., Tomson, G., Petzold, M., & Kabir, Z. N. (2005). Socioeconomic status overrides age and gender in determining health-seeking behaviour in rural Bangladesh. Bulletin of the world health organization, 83, 109-117.
Akande, T. M., & Owayemi, J. (2009). Health-seeking behaviour in Anyigba, north-central Nigeria. Res J Med Sci, 3, 47-51.
Audibert, M., He, Y., & Mathonnat, J. (2013). Multinomial and Mixed Logit Modeling in the Presence of Heterogeneity: A Two-Period Comparison of Healthcare Provider Choice in Rural China.
Begashaw, B., & Tesfaye, T. (2016). Healthcare utilization among urban and rural households in Esera District: Comparative cross-sectional study. American Journal of Public Health Research, 4(2), 56-61.
Bhattacharya, S. (2014). Health seeking behaviour and efficiency status of providers in the dooars of Jalpaiguri district (Doctoral dissertation, University of North Bengal).
Chenge, M. F., Van der Vennet, J., Luboya, N. O., Vanlerberghe, V., Mapatano, M. A., & Criel, B. (2014). Health-seeking behaviour in the city of Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo: results from a cross-sectional household survey. BMC health services research, 14(1), 1-12.
Duncan, C., Jones, K., & Moon, G. (1998). Context, composition and heterogeneity: using multilevel models in health research. Social science & medicine, 46(1), 97-117.
Grundy, J., & Annear, P. (2010). Health-seeking behaviour studies: a literature review of study design and methods with a focus on Cambodia. Health policy and health finance knowledge hub working paper series no, 7.
Kutzin, J. (2001). A descriptive framework for country-level analysis of health care financing arrangements. Health policy, 56(3), 171-204.
Lavy, V., Palumbo, M., & Stern, S. N. (1995). Health care in Jamaica: Quality, outcomes, and labor supply. The World Bank.
Manski, C. F., & McFadden, D. (Eds.). (1981). Structural analysis of discrete data with econometric applications (pp. 2-50). Cambridge, MA: MIT press.
Mukherjee, S., Haddad, S., & Narayana, D. (2011). Social class related inequalities in household health expenditure and economic burden: evidence from Kerala, south India. International Journal for Equity in Health, 10(1), 1-13.
Ngugi, R. (1999). Health seeking behaviour in the reform process for rural households: The case of Mwea division, Kirinyaga district, Kenya.
Pokhrel, S., & Sauerborn, R. (2004). Household decision-making on child health care in developing countries: the case of Nepal. Health policy and planning, 19(4), 218-233.
Shariff, A., & Singh, G. (2002). Determinants of maternal health care utilisation in India: Evidence from a recent household survey (No. 85). New Dehli: National Council of Applied Economic Research.
Wang, Q., Brenner, S., Leppert, G., Banda, T. H., Kalmus, O., & De Allegri, M. (2015). Health seeking behaviour and the related household out-of-pocket expenditure for chronic non-communicable diseases in rural Malawi. Health policy and planning, 30(2), 242-252.

Cites this article as

S. Bhattacharya, D. S. K. Jana, "Determinants of Household Healthcare Choice Behavior: A Study in Purulia District, West Bengal", International Journal of Innovative Research in Engineering & Management (IJIREM), Vol-9, Issue-3, Page No-1-10, 2022. Available from: https://doi.org/10.55524/ijirem.2022.9.3.1

Corresponding Author

Santanu Bhattacharya

M. Phil, Research Scholar, Department of Economics, Vidyasagar University, Midnapore 721102

Download Full Paper

Download PDF

No. of Downloads: 62 | No. of Views: 977

-->

IJIREM

Determinants of Household Healthcare Choice Behavior: A Study in Purulia District, West Bengal

Citations

Download Full Paper PDF

Total View 977

Total Download 62