ICTs and Utilisation of maternal health services in Ghana.
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2013
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
Purpose – Traditionally, the role of technology on health services has been argued from the supply
side. The purpose of this paper is to use a demand side perspective to examine the effect of
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on the use of maternal health services in Ghana.
Design/methodology/approach – Study used data from the 2008 Ghana Demographic and Health
Surveys and binary response regression models to examine the effect of women’s access to ICTs on
maternal healthcare utilization in Ghana. Three variables on maternal healthcare utilization were
employed: use of contraception, antenatal care and place of delivery.
Findings – Results from the study show that the effect of the use of technology is both positive and
significant. In particular, among the other ICTs (i.e. landline phone, listening to radio, watch television,
color television in household, computer in household), the coefficients of mobile phone ownership
tends to be consistently significant across all four reproductive health services. Therefore, ICTs have a
good capacity to influence women’s demand of health information. This needs to be taken into account
when designing maternal health policies and interventions.
Originality/value – This is one of the few papers examining the effect of ICTs on utilization of
maternal health services from the demand side compared to the popular supply side argument often
found in the literature.
Description
Keywords
Development, Health policy, Demography