Household Socioeconomic Status, Neighbour Socioeconomic Disadvantage, Community-Level Poverty and Its Association With Maternal–Child Health Services Utilization in Bangladesh: Looking Beyond Individual and Household Factors

Samarul Islam , International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

Understanding the utilization pattern of maternal-child health care services has been accepted as an important factor for reducing maternal and infant deaths. The present study used last three rounds of datasets (2007, 2011 & 2014) from Bangladesh Demographic and Health Surveys, performed multilevel logistic regression to investigates the effect of socioeconomic status, neighbor socio-economic disadvantage, community-level poverty and its association with maternal-child health services utilization in Bangladesh among women of reproductive age. The result of this study showed community factors mother is positively associated with services utilization controlling other socio-demographic factors. Our analysis revealed that living in a disadvantaged community and high poverty level area also affect health services utilization. The study also found that status plays a greater role than accessibility. Therefore efforts should be made to consider the level of economic development at the community level when formulating policies and programs of health care.

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 Presented in Session 26. Flash Session: Neighborhood Processes in Health