The effect of distance from home on attendance at a small rural health centre in Papua New Guinea

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_E79C4E5F488B
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
The effect of distance from home on attendance at a small rural health centre in Papua New Guinea
Journal
International Journal of Epidemiology
Author(s)
Muller  I., Smith  T., Mellor  S., Rare  L., Genton  B.
ISSN
0300-5771 (Print)
Publication state
Published
Issued date
10/1998
Volume
27
Number
5
Pages
878-84
Notes
Journal Article
Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S. --- Old month value: Oct
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The willingness of patients in the rural tropics to seek medical care at primary health care facilities is influenced by the distance they have to travel, but few studies have tried to estimate these distance effects. METHODS: Distance decay effects in attendance rates were estimated from a database of 4348 attendances at a rural health centre in Papua New Guinea, linked to demographic and house position data for the catchment population. Small-scale spatial patterns and differences between diagnoses, age groups and gender are described. RESULTS: Attendance decreased markedly with distance both overall (50% decrease at 3.5 km) and for patients with malaria or acute respiratory infections. This decrease was non-linear (on log scale) with distance. Although constant over time, there were big differences in this distance effect among age and gender groups: Female patients showed less distance decay in adolescents and adults, but higher in the infant group. Spatial patterns accounted for 32% of the variation in age- and gender-specific attendance rates. Of the spatial effects more than 50% were due to distance effects. CONCLUSIONS: Distance effects were similar in magnitude to those reported elsewhere, suggesting that distance effects may be generalizable to many parts of the rural tropics. The non-linearity of distance decay implies that a bell-shaped demand function should be used in health planning.
Keywords
Adolescent Adult Catchment Area (Health) Child Child, Preschool Community Health Services/*utilization Female *Health Services Accessibility Humans Infant Male Papua New Guinea *Rural Population Travel
Pubmed
Web of science
Open Access
Yes
Create date
28/01/2008 11:49
Last modification date
20/08/2019 16:10
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