TITLE:
The Influence of Socio-Cultural Factors in Access to Healthcare in Kenya: A Case of Nairobi County, Kenya
AUTHORS:
Davies N. Chelogoi, Fred Jonyo, Henry Amadi
KEYWORDS:
Social Class, Access to Healthcare, Health Inequalities and So-cio-Economic Status
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.8 No.5,
May
26,
2020
ABSTRACT: Access to public healthcare in Nairobi County is unequal among social
classes. Lower social classes have worse healthcare than either the upper or
the middle classes. These health inequalities are correlated with
socio-economic inequalities. The higher socio-economic classes have better
access to healthcare than the lower socio-economic classes. Higher incomes,
education, employment and wealth result in better health of the households in
the County. Unequal access to healthcare contributes to disparities in health
status, increases costs for both the insured and the uninsured. Lack of access
to healthcare reduces disposable incomes, particularly burdening the lower
income households. These households cannot afford the care they need. This has
forced them to forego such care altogether. The objectives of the study were
three, namely: to evaluate the influence of demographic variables in access to
public healthcare, to evaluate the influence of socio-cultural factors in
access to public health care, and to evaluate the influence of institutional
factors in access to public healthcare. The study used descriptive design,
specifically, cross-sectional design for collection, measurements and analysis
of data. The study took place in Nairobi County. The target population was
households living in Nairobi County, where the sample was drawn from. The
sampling techniques included multi-stage random sampling, random sampling,
stratifies random sampling, cluster random
sampling, convenient sampling and purposive sampling. The sample size was
obtained using Chadha’s
formula (2006) to arrive at 1066 sample size.
Data collection instruments included observations, face-to-face interviews,
questionnaires, in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. Qualitative
data was analyzed thematically but quantitative data was analyzed using
descriptive statistics. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 23. The results
show that there were positive correlations between independent and dependent
variables. The P-value was statistically
significant. The results were not due to random chance and that P-0.01