Disparities and Inequality in Utilization of Health Services among tribal women in North East States of India

Introduction: Maternal health care and utilization very serious public health issue in developing countries as well as in India. The tribal population of North East States of India has very low levels of literacy and need a high awareness related to the maternal health care and utilization of health services. This paper is an attempt to understand the utilization of maternal health care by the vulnerable groups of the population. The present study examines the socioeconomic and demographic differentials in assessing the delivery of institutional and non-institutional places and it does determine the health of the mother.

Methods: The District Level Household Survey -III (2007-08) data has been used for the study. Concentration index, Bivariate and Multivariate methods like binary logistic regression are used for analysis .

Results: The present study found that there were differences in the institutional and non-institutional delivery among tribal and non-tribal women in the northeast states of India. About 65 % percent of tribal women still delivered their child in non-institutional places. After adjusting demographic, education, and place of residence, we found that those women have above 4 antenatal visits was 2 times more likely to deliver their child in institutional as non-institutional.

Conclusion: Study suggested that there is a need of short and effective program, totally focused on the tribal population and increase the benefit of antenatal care and institutional delivery.