Does community access affect the use of health and family welfare services in India ?
by N. P. Das, Vinod K. Mishra, and P. K. Saha. Focused on NFHS-1 results from India’s four large northern states-Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Rajasthan-this analysis shows that variations in utilization of family planning and maternal and child health services are explained mainly by variations in household- and individual-level socioeconomic and demographic factors, not by variation in community access to services. Apparently family planning and maternal and child health services are available at a sufficient level in rural India so that further improvements in physical accessibility alone will not make a substantial difference in the propensity to use these services. Quality of services is likely also to be important, but NFHS-1 did not assess service quality.
