Abstract:
Objective To analyze the health equality and its influencing factors among rural women in 5 counties of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (Ningxia) and to provide evidences for promoting health equality among rural women and developing health policies by government agencies.
Methods We extracted information on 9 663 rural women aged ≥ 15 years in 5 counties of Ningxia from the follow-up data of the Household Survey on Health among Rural Residents in 2015. Concentration index (CI) was used to evaluate health equality and probit regression model analysis was adopted to explore influencing factors of health equity among the women.
Results The CI for two-week prevalence rate and chronic disease prevalence rate was – 0.008 0 and – 0.020 5 among the rural women and there were statistically significant regional differences in health equality for the rural women (P < 0.05). Both the two-week prevalence rate and chronic disease prevalence rate were higher among the rural women at elder age, married, with poor self-rated health, with low family economic condition, and with low education.
Conclusion The health equity is generally at a fair level among rural women in the five counties of Ningxia but relatively concentrated in the women with low income. Age, marital status, education, self-rated health, and family economic condition are still important factors affecting the health equity among the women.