scholarly journals Healthcare Delivery Systems in Rural Areas

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ankeeta Menona Jacob

Health care is a fundamental right of every human being. About half of the world’s population (An estimated 3.4 billion of the world’s 7.6 billion in 2018) lived in rural areas. Individuals in rural areas often have poor access to healthcare because of poor accessibility and availability of standard healthcare systems and socio-cultural factors affecting their perception of health compared to the urban population. Though there is a projected decrease in the absolute percentage of the world’s population dwelling in rural areas by 2050, there is also a projected increase projected increase needing of prioritizing rural health. This chapter shall discusses the critical factors that disadvantage the rural population. It also considers the methods used to work out rural healthcare delivery strategies to decrease this disparity in rural areas’ health care facilities.

1985 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Collins O. Airhihenbuwa

Two hundred and fifty five heads of households in Iyekuselu District, Bendel State Nigeria, were interviewed. Fifteen villages were randomly selected from the 107 villages that make up the district. There is high morbidity of infectious diseases identified in the study. Limited number of medical professionals and medical institutions present problems of availability of services. This is compounded by high cost of medical services and poor access to health care facilities. The self-perceived health care needs of the heads of households are disease prevention, availability of health services, improved accessibility to health care facilities and reduced cost of care. There is a strong need for health education programs in these villages. This should be attempted with the cooperation of community members, so as to attain the goal of promoting health and preventing diseases.


10.2196/14923 ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (10) ◽  
pp. e14923 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Danielle Crawford ◽  
Regine Haardöerfer ◽  
Hannah Cooper ◽  
Izraelle McKinnon ◽  
Carla Jones-Harrell ◽  
...  

Background The opioid epidemic has ravaged rural communities in the United States. Despite extensive literature relating the physical environment to substance use in urban areas, little is known about the role of physical environment on the opioid epidemic in rural areas. Objective This study aimed to examine the reliability of Google Earth to collect data on the physical environment related to substance use in rural areas. Methods Systematic virtual audits were performed in 5 rural Kentucky counties using Google Earth between 2017 and 2018 to capture land use, health care facilities, entertainment venues, and businesses. In-person audits were performed for a subset of the census blocks. Results We captured 533 features, most of which were images taken before 2015 (71.8%, 383/533). Reliability between the virtual audits and the gold standard was high for health care facilities (>83%), entertainment venues (>95%), and businesses (>61%) but was poor for land use features (>18%). Reliability between the virtual audit and in-person audit was high for health care facilities (83%) and entertainment venues (62%) but was poor for land use (0%) and businesses (12.5%). Conclusions Poor reliability for land use features may reflect difficulty characterizing features that require judgment or natural changes in the environment that are not reflective of the Google Earth imagery because it was captured several years before the audit was performed. Virtual Google Earth audits were an efficient way to collect rich neighborhood data that are generally not available from other sources. However, these audits should use caution when the images in the observation area are dated.


2020 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 387-399
Author(s):  
Anand Kumar ◽  
◽  
Dhiraj Kumar Sharma ◽  
Satya Prakash ◽  
Ram Sakal Yadava ◽  
...  

At this critical juncture of time when the whole world is facing a health care emergency due to the occurrence of (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic. It becomes necessary to critically evaluate public health care facilities and their availability to common people to tackle the ongoing crisis rationally. In this regard, this paper tries to study the spatial distribution of public health care facilities and their availability in rural areas of Nalanda district. Location quotient, Lorenz curve and Gini's coefficient have been worked out to find unequal concentration, availability and distribution of public health care facilities across the study area. To show the concentration and distribution of health care facilities over space maps have been drawn on ArcGIS. MS Excel and Word have been used for showing the availability of health care facilities through graphical representation and for tabulation purposes. This paper concludes that community development blocks surrounding district headquarter have a higher concentration and larger availability of rural public health care facilities in comparison to peripheral community development blocks of the study area.


2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (12) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Nenavath Sreenu

At present, the development of healthcare infrastructure in India is poor and needs fundamental reforms in order to deal with emerging challenges. This study surveys the growth of the healthcare infrastructure. The development of infrastructure and health care facilities, the position of the workforce, and the quality of service delivery are important challenges that are confronting healthcare centres in rural India. This article critically analyses the future challenges of Indian healthcare infrastructure development in rural areas, discussing the burden of disease, widespread financial deficiency, the vaccination policy and poor access to health care as some of the main issues. Life expectancy, literacy and per capita income are further considerations.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 716-724
Author(s):  
Sarika Palepu ◽  
Kapil Yadav ◽  
Farhad Ahamed ◽  
Anil Kumar Goswami ◽  
Baridalyne Nongkynrih ◽  
...  

Background: Rapid urbanization has resulted in increased burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases, especially among urban poor population. In the absence of a well-functioning three tier health care system in urban India, health needs of urban poor are rarely fulfilled. The objective of this study was to assess primary health care services utilisation pattern and its associated selected socio-demographic determinants in an urban population of Dakshinpuri Extension, South-east district of Delhi.Materials and Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was done from November 2013 to November 2014 with a sample size of 440 households through simple random sampling. Information was obtained regarding the socio-demographic characteristics and morbidity pattern of all the members of household in the preceding one year of the conduct of the present study through a pretested semi structured interview schedule. Association of various socio-demographic characteristics with primary and secondary health care facilities utilisation was studied with bivariate and multivariate logistic regression.Result: In this study, 42% of the household members suffered from acute illnesses and symptoms in the preceding one year. Secondary/tertiary health care facilities were approached mostly for seeking treatment. Majority of the household members sought treatment from private health care facilities. Significantly higher utilisation of secondary/tertiary health care facilities was found by head of households and household members who are married.Conclusion: Primary health care system needs to be revamped to improve healthcare delivery among urban population. Strategies to decongest secondary/tertiary health care facilities in urban India needs focus.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. e0256086
Author(s):  
Aiggan Tamene

Background Quality water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities act as barricades to the transmission of COVID-19 in health care facilities. These facilities ought to also be available, accessible, and functional in temporary treatment centers. Despite numerous studies on health care facilities, however, there is limited information on the status of WASH facilities in such centers. Methods The assessment of health care facilities for the COVID-19 response checklist and key informant interviews, were used for data collection. 35 treatment centers in Southern Ethiopia were surveyed. Eightkey informants were interviewed to gain an understanding of the WASH conditions in the treatment centers. The Quantitative data was entered using EPI-INFO 7 and exported to SPSS 20 for analysis. Results are presented using descriptive statistics. Open Code 4.02 was used for the thematic analysis of the qualitative data. Results Daily water supply interruptions occurred at 27 (77.1%) of the surveyed sites. Only 30 (85.72%) had bathrooms that were segregated for personnel and patients, and only 3 (3.57%) had toilets that were handicapped accessible. 20(57.2%) of the treatment centers did not have a hand hygiene protocol that satisfied WHO guidelines. In terms of infection prevention and control, 16 (45.71%) of the facilities lacked adequate personal protective equipment stocks. Between urban and rural areas, there was also a significant difference in latrine maintenance, hand hygiene protocol design and implementation, and incineration capacity. Conclusion The results reveal crucial deficiencies in the provision of WASH in the temporary COVID-19 treatment centers. Efforts to improve WASH should offer priority to hygiene service interventions to minimize the risk of healthcare-acquired infections. The sustainable provision of hygiene services, such as hand washing soap, should also be given priority.


2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-129
Author(s):  
Raksha Shrestha ◽  
Sarita Adhikari

Introduction: Health service delivery systems that are safe, accessible, high quality, people-centred, and integrated are critical for moving towards universal health coverage. World Health Organisation is supporting to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of health service delivery systems to all the population not only the patients. This study aims to identify the factors affecting the choice of health care facilities among the adults of an urban community and its association with the selected socio-demographic variables.  Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among the community residence with 120 respondents using non-probability purposive sampling technique. Data was collected using semi-structured interview schedule that was analysed by using descriptive statistical methods such as frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and inferential statistics such as chi-square test. Result: The findings of the study revealed that majority (60.8%) of the respondents used private health care facilities and there was significant association of the choice of health care facility with the health care services related factors whereas no significant association was found with the selected socio-demographic variables. Conclusions: Based on the study findings, it concluded that various health care services related factors like availability, affordability, acceptability and accessibility factors tends to affect the choice of health care facility


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