The Investigating Child Healthcare Disparities in Pakistan: Insights from 2012-13 and 2017-18 Demographic Health Surveys
Child Healthcare Disparities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62807/jowach.v1i4.2024.21-31Keywords:
child health, maternal health, Disparities , Pakistan, urban Pakistan, pediatrics, underfive, neonates, adolescents, Women and Child Health, women, women health, maternal, DemographyAbstract
This study examines the impact of parental education and various factors on children's healthcare needs in Pakistan, where child health often receives insufficient attention despite its importance. Utilizing representative secondary data from Pakistan Demographic and Health Surveys, the research employs qualitative and quantitative analyses, including binary logistic regression, to explore healthcare issues. The findings indicate a significant association between fever, diarrhea, and selected social, demographic, and economic variables across both PDHS datasets. Notably, children of educated parents exhibit higher healthcare service utilization. The study underscores the importance of enhancing parental education levels, particularly maternal education, to improve children's health outcomes.
References
Aburto JM, Villavicencio F, Basellini U, Kjærgaard S, Vaupel JW. Dynamics of life expectancy and life span equality. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020;117(10):5250-9.
Adeyanju O, Tubeuf S, Ensor T. Socio-economic inequalities in access to maternal and child healthcare in Nigeria: changes over time and decomposition analysis. Health Policy Plan. 2017;32(8):1111-8.
Alene M, Yismaw L, Berelie Y, Kassie B. Health care utilization for common childhood illnesses in rural parts of Ethiopia: evidence from the 2016 Ethiopian demographic and health survey. BMC Public Health. 2019;19(1):57.
Ali HA, Hartner AM, Echeverria-Londono S, et al. Vaccine equity in low- and middle-income countries: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Int J Equity Health. 2022;21:82.
Amroussia N, Gustafsson PE, Mosquera PA. Explaining mental health inequalities in Northern Sweden: a decomposition analysis. Glob Health Action. 2017;10(1):1305814.
Aslam M, Kingdon G. Parental education and child health understanding the pathways of impact in Pakistan. Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), Working Paper Series. 2010;(16).
Besnier E. Women’s political empowerment and child health in the sustainable development era: A global empirical analysis (1990–2016). Global Public Health. 2023 Jan 2;18(1):1849348.
Braveman P, Gottlieb L. The social determinants of health: It’s time to consider the causes of the causes. Public Health Rep. 2014;129(1):19-31.
Chen H, Liu Y, Zhu Z, Li Z. Does where you live matter to your health? Investigating factors that influence the self-rated health of urban and rural Chinese residents: evidence drawn from Chinese general social survey data. Health Qual Life Outcomes. 2017;15(1):78.
Dong X, Simon MA. Health and ageing in a Chinese population: urban and rural disparities. Geriatr Gerontol Int. 2010;10(1):85-93.
Gu H, Kou Y, You H, Xu X, Yang N, Liu J, et al. Measurement and decomposition of income-related inequality in self-rated health among the elderly in China. Int J Equity Health. 2019;18(1):4.
Hotchkiss DR, Mock NB, Seiber EE. The effect of the health care supply environment on children's nutritional status in rural Nepal. J Biosoc Sci. 2002;34(2):173-92.
Lavy V, Strauss J, Thomas D, De Vreyer P. Quality of health care, survival and health outcomes in Ghana. J Health Econ. 1996;15(3):333-57.
Mekonen EG, Zegeye AF, Workneh BS. Complementary feeding practices and associated factors among mothers of children aged 6 to 23 months in Sub-saharan African countries: a multilevel analysis of the recent demographic and health survey. BMC Public Health. 2024 Jan 8;24(1):115.
Miller JE, Rodgers YV. Mother's education and children's nutritional status: new evidence from Cambodia. 2009.
Novignon J, Aboagye E, Agyemang OS, Aryeetey G. Socioeconomic-related inequalities in child malnutrition: evidence from the Ghana multiple indicator cluster survey. Health Econ Rev. 2015;5(1):34.
Pakistan Demographic and Health Survey (PDHS). Final report of Pakistan demographic and health survey, 2017-2018. Available from: https://www.nips.org.pk/abstract_files/PDHS%20-%202017%2018%20Key%20indicator%20Report%20Aug%202018.pdf.
Poda GG, Hsu CY, Chao JC. Factors associated with malnutrition among children <5 years old in Burkina Faso: evidence from the Demographic and Health Surveys IV 2010. Int J Equity Health. 2017;29(7):901-8.
Saleem H, Shabbir MS, Khan B. Re-examining multidimensional poverty in Pakistan: a new assessment of regional variations. Glob Bus Rev. 2021;22(6):1441-58.
Sarma H, Khan JR, Asaduzzaman M, Uddin F, Tarannum S, Hasan MM, et al. Factors influencing the prevalence of stunting among children aged below five years in Bangladesh. Food Nutr Bull. 2017;38(3):291-301.
The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank. Environmental health and child survival: epidemiology, economics, experiences. Washington, DC: The World Bank; 2008.
United Nations Children's Fund. Strategy for improved nutrition of children and women in developing countries. A UNICEF policy review. New York: ERIC Clearinghouse; 1990.
World Health Organization, UNICEF. Core questions on drinking water and sanitation for household surveys. 2006. Available from: www.who.int/water_sanitation.../oms_brochure_core_questionsfinal24608.pdf.
Zaidman EA, Scott KM, Hahn D, Bennett P, Caldwell PH. Impact of parental health literacy on the health outcomes of children with chronic disease globally: A systematic review. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health. 2023 Jan;59(1):12-31.

Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Ehtasham ul Haq, Jalal ud Din, Abdul Naeem

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The Journal of Women and Child Health (JoWaCH) adheres to the CC BY 4.0 license, which is a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For comprehensive information, we kindly request that you refer to the full license legal code. JoWaCH employs a non-exclusive license agreement for the purpose of open-access publication. In the context of open access publishing, the authors maintain the copyright of their work while also granting the journal the rights to publish and distribute it, while retaining the primary academic use rights. This practice facilitates the optimal use and dissemination of the work, while also guaranteeing proper attribution to the original source. The handling of manuscript content shall be conducted with confidentiality, with the exception of cases involving review processes and investigations related to potential misconduct, plagiarism, and duplicate/redundant or overlapping publications, in accordance with the guidelines provided by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) COPE Guidelines.
JoWaCH is prohibited from disseminating content derived from previously published scientific work without obtaining proper authorization. Obtaining permission from the copyright holder, who may be either the author(s) or the publisher, is necessary in cases where the copyright holder is the publisher, for any work you want to use.
While it is acceptable to use a small amount of a work, obtaining permission from the copyright owners is necessary for a significant extraction.
The use of unmodified or little modified tables, graphs, and artworks (whether they are the user's own work previously published elsewhere or created by another copyright holder) necessitates obtaining permission.
Tables, graphs, charts, and artworks that have been fully redesigned and rebuilt, and include proper reference of the source, do not need obtaining permission.
JoWaCH facilitates unrestricted access to journal material for readers, necessitating the imposition of membership fees. The journal operates on a self-sustaining financial model and does not rely on support from other sources. The procedure of publishing is contingent only upon the financial resources of the publisher. The readers have unrestricted access to the information on the journal website.