The Demand for Child Health Care and its Determinants in Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia

Abstract

The paper tried to estimate the demand for modern health care of child in Oromia regional state by using a nested multinomial logit model using full information maximum likelihood technique that estimated both decisions of using modern health care and health care provider choices simultaneously. The study used the Ethiopian socioeconomic survey data which is collected by the World Bank in 2015/16. The estimated result of the upper level model, which is the choice between modern health care and no care, variables such as education of the child's father, access to health care and access to public transport positively and significantly affected the demand for modern health care of children. On the other hand, distance to asphalt road, number of children in the household and availability of mothers in the household negatively and significantly affected the decision of using modern health care. The estimation of the lower level model (i.e, choice of health care provider) indicated that choice of private health care provider significantly decreased for households with large family size but public health care provider significantly increased for household with large family size. Privet health care choices significantly increased for households who live in communities where drug stores are available and households who have access to information. On the other hand, the use of both public and private health care providers generally declines as age of household head increases and male headed households significantly reduced the use of private health care provider.