Household socio-economic status and health disparity of children under five years in urban-rural Kagera Region
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2019
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Mzumbe University
Abstract
Health outcomes for children in Tanzania have been improving but child health disparities exist in various forms and at different levels as it stipulated in TDHS report of 2015-16. The study examined the effects of socioeconomic status on rural urban child health disparities in Kagera region. The study used individual level data from field survey which was conducted in January 2019 to February 2019 in Kagera region, specifically Bukoba Urban and Bukoba rural. To examine rural-urban child health disparity, the study used the sample of 308 households with children aging 24 59 months. Ordinary Least Square (OLS), Instrumental variable approach, Ordered Probit model and decomposition technique were the methodology employed as to achieve the highlighted objectives. The regression results show that parental education, household income, coughing/flu infection, nutrition intake, drinking boiled water, and gender of a child were the variables that were significant at different levels. The decomposition findings reveal that rural-urban disparity/gap in Height-for-Age Z-scores is -0.68, and total rural-urban gap in predicted probability of having excellent child self-reported health is 0.12 points. Rural-urban gap is still a problem in Kagera region and it is prevailing at a large magnitude, as it evidenced from the findings. Household income and parental education were found to be the main contributing variables of the observed disparity. However, the study calls for strengthening Unconditional Cash Transfer programme such as TASAF which should be the major focus of intervention especially in rural residence, aiming at boosting rural households’ income.
Description
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Social Science in partial/fulfilment of the requirements for award of the Degree of Master of Science in Economics (MSC ECO) of Mzumbe University
Keywords
Socio-economic, Health dispensary, Child nutritional
Citation
APA