Background:
Globally, women suffer more from healthcare inequalities, which might be the factor causing excess mortality in all periods of life. Though Bangladesh has achieved excellent progress in providing health care, the country still has some critical challenges that need immediate attention. The objective of this study is to examine the association between social determinants and barriers in accessing healthcare among ever-married women aged 15–49 in Bangladesh.
Methods:
The study was conducted among 20,127 women aged 15–49, using data from the 2017–2018 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey. The barriers to healthcare, which were created from four questions about whether a woman faced problems in permission, obtaining money, distance, or companionship, were the outcome variable. The independent variable included age, marital status, education level, employment, religion, health insurance status, frequency of exposure to mass media, the sex of the household head, owning a mobile phone, household wealth status. Descriptive analysis, bivariate analysis, and multilevel multivariable logistic regression analyses were conducted. The associations were expressed as adjusted odds ratios (aOR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI).
Results:
More than two-thirds (66.3%) of women reported having at least one perceived barrier in accessing healthcare. Women with a higher level of education (AOR = 0.49, 95% CI: 0.41–0.57), reading newspapers or magazines at least once a week (AOR = 0.65 CI: 0.53–0.79), watching television at least once a week (AOR = 0.88 CI: 0.80–0.96), owning a mobile telephone (AOR = 0.78 CI: 0.73–0.84) and those in the richest wealth quintile (AOR = 0.45, CI: 0.38–0.52) had lower odds of having barriers in accessing healthcare. In addition, widowed (AOR = 1.53 CI: 1.26–1.84), divorced (AOR = 1.91 CI:1.47–2.48), or separated (AOR = 1.98 CI: 1.46–2.69) women and those engaged in household and domestic services (AOR = 2.07 CI: 1.59–2.69) had higher odds of having a financial barrier in accessing healthcare.
Conclusions:
This study shows the association between individual, household, and community level factors and the barriers in accessing healthcare in Bangladesh. The factors identified include age, marital status, educational level, occupation, exposure to mass media, owning a mobile telephone, wealth quantile, and region of residence. These findings highlight the need to pay critical attention to these factors to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals 3.7, and 3.8. The findings of this study could help healthcare policymakers improve women's healthcare through service redistribution to achieve equity in healthcare.