Responding to Crisis: Patterns of Health Care Utilization in Central Kenya Amid Economic Decline

African states have become increasingly unable to provide adequate health care to their citizens due to debt, structural adjustment, poverty, and mismanagement. The health crisis is worsening in many areas and driving up mortality rates after decades of decline. This article investigates how African...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:African studies review 2003-04, Vol.46 (1), p.69-92
Main Authors: Mbatia, Paul N., Bradshaw, York W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access to health care
African studies
Cognitive problems, arts and sciences, folk traditions, folklore
Economic Conditions
Economic crisis
Economic decline
Educational attainment
Ethnology
Health care
Health Care Utilization
Health facilities
Kenya
Medicine
Poverty
Public opinion surveys
Regional studies
Rural Areas
Rural Population
Structural adjustment
Theory
Traditional and modern medicine
public health
Traditional sciences and medicine
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Summary:African states have become increasingly unable to provide adequate health care to their citizens due to debt, structural adjustment, poverty, and mismanagement. The health crisis is worsening in many areas and driving up mortality rates after decades of decline. This article investigates how African communities and their citizens respond in light of state inability to deliver health-related services. Drawing on a survey of more than five hundred rural Kenyans, our analysis shows that people are dissatisfied with government facilities and are turning to mission clinics and hospitals as well as to private clinics. A number of factors determine choice of health-care facility, including cost, level of education, socioeconomic background, the time taken to reach a facility, the type of disease requiring treatment, and agro-ecological zones. These findings have profound theoretical implications for health and development models, which normally are biased in favor of developed Western countries.
ISSN:0002-0206
1555-2462
DOI:10.2307/1514981