Equity in health and healthcare in Malawi analysis of trends.docVIP

BMC Public Health BioMedCentral Research article Open Access Equity in health and healthcare in Malawi: analysis of trends Eyob Zere*1, Matshidiso Moeti1, Joses Kirigia2, Takondwa Mwase3 and Edward Kataika4 Address: 1World Health Organization, P.O.Box 30390, Lilongwe, Malawi, 2World Health Organization, Regional Office for Africa, B.P. 6, Brazzaville, Congo, 3PHR plus, P.O.Box 30846, Lilongwe, Malawi and 4Ministry of Health, P.O.Box 30377, Lilongwe, Malawi Email: Eyob Zere* - zeyob@; Matshidiso Moeti - moetim@; Joses kirigia - kirigiaj@; Takondwa Mwase - tmwase@; Edward Kataika - ekataika@ * Corresponding author Published: 15 May 2007 Received: 19 October 2006 Accepted: 15 May 2007 BMC Public Health 2007, 7:78 doi:10.1186/1471-2458-7-78 This article is available from: /1471-2458/7/78 ? 2007 Zere et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract Background: Growing scientific evidence points to the pervasiveness of inequities in health and health care and the persistence of the inverse care law, that is the availability of good quality healthcare seems to be inversely related to the need for it in developing countries. Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals is likely to be compromised if inequities in health/healthcare are not properly addressed. Objective: This study attempts to assess trends in inequities in selected indicators of health status and health service utilization in Malawi using data from the Demographic and Health Surveys of 1992, 2000 and 2004. Methods: Data from Demographic and Health Surveys of 1992, 2000 and 2004 are analysed for inequities in health/healthcare using quintile ratios and concentration curves/indices. Results: Overall, the findings ind