Demand, utilization of health service among herders and residents in pastoral areas of Xinjiang

Objective To describe health service demand and utilization among herders and residents in the pastoralareas of Xinjiang for the planning and capacity building of hospital in Xinjiang.Methods A total of 1055 nomadic families and 665 resident families in three anmial husbandry counties in Xin jiang were randomly chosen with stratified cluster sampling method for the family health survey.Results Among the partic ipants,the two week consultation rate was 6.8%.A mong the participants with illnes,sthe two week non consultaiton rate was 53.6%;the hospita lization rate was 5.1% and non-hospitalization rate was 27.8% in 2008.The two week medical consultation and hospitalization rate of herdsmen were well belowthe national level for rural area in 2008 and the two week non-consultation rate and non-hosp italization rate were higher than the national level for rural area.The difference of two weekmedical consultation rate and non-hospita lization rate between nomadic and resident herder were not statistically different.The two week non consultation rate for nom adic herders(55.8%) was higher than that of resident herders(48.2%),but hospita lization rate for nom adic herdsmen(4.4%)was lower than that of resident herders(6.5%).The proportions of selecting medical institution in anmial husbandry point and using township hospitals for hospita lization were higher among the nom adic than among the residents of herdsmen.Conclusion The health status of herdsmen in Xinjiang was poor,and the provision of health services cannotmeet the demand for health service.Utilization of health service is insufficient and health service system of the grassroots in pastoral areas should be streng thened.