The health status of women and children in Bangladesh

Abstract

This study attempts to investigate the utilization status of the government primary health care services on women and children in the rural areas of Bangladesh. Though there are a large number of indicators directly or indirectly related to the utilization status of health care services, we have chosen here to focus on some selected vital issues such as: knowledge of married women regarding health care facilities; knowledge on immunization; knowledge about appropriate time and doses for specific immunization; vaccination to youngest child and the place of vaccination; reasons for not giving vaccine to child/children; safety about  immunization process; antenatal care; reasons for not visiting government hospital and finally the satisfaction of the respondent on govt. primary health care services. The study findings show a significant portion of the rural women does not participate in household decision making and about 69.3 percent of total women do not cast her vote independently. About 33.7 percent of rural women still believe in prejudice regarding health issues. About 35.0 percent of rural women being faced various type of social injustice.

Keywords- Health, Nutrition, Immunization, Mortality, Utilization.