International Journal of Social Science Research (IJSSR)

Exploring The Healthcare- seeking Patterns of Muslim Women in Urban Slums of Bhagalpur

Healthcare-seeking behaviour of the women, especially Muslim women especially those who live in the urban slums of India, is an imperative subject of inquiry in the cross section of gender, religion, and the population health. This research explored the issue of healthcare seeking and barriers to addressing the healthcare problem among the urban slums of Bhagalpur, Bihar, of Muslim women. Factor analysis of a cross-sectional survey of 384 participants found three dimensions of barriers (explaining 60.35 out of variance) Socio-Cultural Barriers (29.10), Economic and Physical Barriers (19.70) and Health System and Information Barriers (11.55). Correlation analysis established that education (r =.401, p<.01) and income (r =.372, p<.01) exhibited positive correlation with healthcare utilization, but socio-cultural barriers had a strong negative relationship (r = -.512, p<.01). The regression model has explained 40.1 percent of the variation in utilization and socio-cultural barriers were the strongest negative predictors ( = -.35, P =.001), as opposed to education ( =.28, P =.001) and economic barriers ( = -.14, P =.003). Results indicate that socio-cultural determinants represent the strongest barrier to healthcare access that requires the implementation of extensive interventions with consideration of gender norms and community-based attitude as well as economical support. Keywords Muslim women, healthcare-seeking, urban slums, Bhagalpur, socio-cultural barriers, factor analysis