Health inequity on access to services in the ethnic minority regions of Northeastern Myanmar: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

To evaluate health inequity on access to services in the ethnic regions of Northeastern Myanmar from three points of analysis: geographic barrier, gender-based disparity and financial burden of health services. Setting A multistage-stratified random cluster survey was conducted in Shan State Special Region 2 and Eastern Shan State Special Region 4 of Northeastern Myanmar in 2016, including a total number of 774 households. Participants A total number of 4235 participants were recruited during the survey. Primary and secondary outcome measures Geographic distance, gender, household income and inpatient/outpatient service utilisation. Results The study results showed that residents living within 5 km of any form of healthcare facilities paid more outpatient visits (90.06 visits per thousand population) in the past 2 weeks, compared with those living 5-20 km and over 20 km (54.84 and 54.02 per thousand population, respectively) from healthcare facilities. A similar trend with little significant differences was found for inpatient service use. Regarding household income, adults with an annual household income of above US$720 were more likely to seek outpatient service (OR=1.43, 95% CI 0.98 to 2.10) compared with those with an annual income of