Access and Utilisation of Health Care among Tribes in Rural Areas in Kerala, India: An Econometric Questionnaire Case Study

The state of Kerala in India is known for its impressive health indicators with modest level of income. But it has often been pointed out that marginalised communities like tribals still remains outliers of Kerala’s health success story. Though the state has wide coverage of health care institutions, concerns have been raised about the accessibility of health care among tribal communities who live in places away from the main stream. Thus, this paper analyses the access and utilisation of health care among eight prominent tribal communities of three tribal dominated districts of Wayanad, Idukki and Palakkad of Kerala. The study used primary data collected from 596 tribal headed households that approximately covers one per cent of the total households of each tribal community. The study found that mean distance to avail the services of the health care institution of PHC is 3.69 kilo meters. There is statistically significant difference in the mean distance and it is highest among the Adiyan community and is the lowest among the Irular. The analysis of access to nearest government hospital and private hospital having the facilities of in-patient treatment follows similar pattern. Allopathy is the preferred system of medicine among the tribal households and majority prefer government taluk or district hospital for in-patient treatment. The bivariate analysis of the choice of provider showed that households belonging to forward socioeconomic category with a literate head, with chronic and/or acute ailments and are more immediacy to private facilities tend to choose private providers for health care treatment.