Healthcare Access in Mumbai's Slums: Analysing Socioeconomic Barriers through Andersen's Behavioural Model

Access to healthcare in Mumbai’s slum populations-Nehru Nagar, Indira Nagar, and the Santacruz East has been reviewed for systemic inequities through the lens of Andersen's Behavioral Model of Health Services Use. Three factors that he mentioned in his model like Predisposing factors like education, cultural beliefs etc., Enabling factors such as income level, type of health insurance, and geographic access etc, and Need factors like chronic illness, perceived health need were analysed. Using mixed methods, household interviews in slum populations (n=200) reveal that because of the lack of public healthcare facilities, 63% depended on costly private clinics with a large proportion of people out-of-pocket catastrophic expense impacting 55%. Migrant workers, especially women, have been rendered, in a systematic way, outside the periphery of schemes such as Ayushman Bharat because of lack of documentation and low levels of health literacy. While insight into "healthcare deserts" located in Santacruz East indicates that there are government clinics presently overwhelmed with patient demand, community participation such as ASHA worker campaigns and mobile clinics facilitated by NGOs bring to the fore the potential for localized interventions. The study highlights the need for the policies towards accessible reforms for slums so that subsidized diagnostics, decentralized telemedicine kiosks, and mobile health units serve the slum as well as the migrant community optimally. Emphasizing social empowerment through health literacy and participatory governance would strengthen efforts toward achieving SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) that aligns with India's vision of "Viksit Bharat 2047