Mary Mathew¹*, Jenny A Momoh¹, Dan Apagu Gadzama², Esomonu Sabastine N² and Michael E Aghahowa³

¹Department of Community Medicine, Federal University of Lafia, Lafia, Nasarawa State, Nigeria
²Department of Planning, Research and Statistics, Federal Capital Territory Primary Health Care Board, Garki, Abuja, Nigeria
³Department of Surgery, Asokoro District Hospital, Abuja, Nigeria

*Corresponding Author: Mary Mathew, Department of Community Medicine, Federal University of Lafia, Lafia, Nasarawa State, Nigeria

Received: July 18, 2023; Published: July 27, 2023

Abstract

The source of health care by households influences the growth and development and overall health outcomes of a population. This mixed cross-sectional descriptive study among 495 eligible respondents in Edo State, Nigeria found chemists were the major source of healthcare patronized by households in both geographic and socioeconomic groups. This was followed by private and teaching hospitals in the urban areas but health centers and herbalists in the rural areas. Although there was no statistically significant difference between the healthcare seeking behavior of households of different socioeconomic groups, the major reason given by the poorest households for initial choice of a health provider was cost while those in the rich and richest households was quality.
Rural households reported more illnesses than the urban households. There was a statistically significant difference in the distribution of the reported illness between rural and urban households. This significant finding shows that diseases need to be identified at the community level. In reality, only a minority number of diseases turn up at health facilities buttressing the ‘tip of the iceberg phenomenon’ for disease detection at health facilities. This affects the true picture of disease prevalence and its surveillance. With one-health approach in mind, human and animal surveillance needs to be integrated and innovative solutions found to address some challenges. The importance of an innovative events-based surveillance as an important mechanism for early warning, risk assessment, disease predictions and responses, starting from the community level cannot, but be overemphasized.

Keywords: Sources of Healthcare; Socioeconomic; Geographic Location

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Citation

Citation: Mary Mathew., et al. “Geographic and Socioeconomic difference in the Sources of Healthcare by Households in Edo State and its Implication on Disease Surveillance".Acta Scientific Nutritional Health 7.8 (2023): 110-118.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2023 Mary Mathew., et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.