Factors Associated with Maternal and Child Healthcare Service Utilization: A Comparative Study of East and Western Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

Every year, thousands of women die around the world as a result of pregnancy and delivery-related complications, and thousands of children suffer from diseases that could be avoided with vaccination. The objective of this study is to explore the factors determining the utilization of maternal and child healthcare service utilization in the eastern and western Uttar Pradesh. For the study We used National Family Health Survey round 4 (2015-2016) data which is a multi-round, large-scale survey conducted on a representative sample of households from across the country. Chi-square test was used to find the significance level during bivariate analysis. Additionally, binary logistic regression analysis was used to establish the association between outcome variables and other explanatory variables. The result suggests that the percentage use of full antenatal care services by mothers age, media exposure, caste, and birth order is almost similar in both the regions while for education it depicts a surprising result as women with higher education in WUP tend to have lesser utilization of full ANC as compared to the women of EUP of the same category. The mothers of eastern Uttar Pradesh lag behind in utilizing the PNC services as compared to the western Uttar Pradesh. The prevalence of full immunization, and PNC is tended to be higher among the children of western Uttar Pradesh. Women in the higher quantiles and with more education were more likely to get their child vaccinated and have a PNC visit.