Utilizing maternal healthcare services: are female-headed households faring poorly?

BACKGROUND: Utilization of maternal healthcare services has a direct bearing on maternal mortality but is contingent on a wide range of socioeconomic factors, including the sex of the household head. This paper studies the role of the sex of the household head in the utilization of maternal healthcare services in India using data from the National Family Health Survey-V (2019-2021). METHODS: The outcome variable of this study is maternal healthcare service utilization. To that end, we consider three types of maternal healthcare services: antenatal care, skilled birth assistance, and postnatal care to measure the utilization of maternal healthcare service utilization. The explanatory variable is the sex of the household head and we control for specific characteristics at the individual level, household-head level, household level and spouse level. We then incorporate a bivariate logistic regression on the variables of interest. RESULTS: 24.25% of women from male-headed households have complete utilization of maternal healthcare services while this proportion for women from female-headed households stands at 22.39%. The results from the bivariate logistic regression confirm the significant impact that the sex of the household head has on the utilization of maternal healthcare services in India. It is observed that women from female-headed households in India are 19% (AOR, 0.81; 95% CI: 0.63,1.03) less likely to utilize these services than those from male-headed households. Moreover with higher levels of education, there is a 25% (AOR, 1.25; 95% CI: 1.08,1.44) greater likelihood of utilizing maternal healthcare services. Residence in urban areas, improved wealth quintiles and access to healthcare facilities significantly increases the chances of maternal healthcare utilization. The interaction term between the sex of the household head and the wealth quintile the household belongs to, (AOR, 1.39; 95% CI: 1.02, 1.89) shows that the utilization of maternal healthcare services improves when the wealth quintile of the household improves. CONCLUSION: The results throw light on the fact that the added expenditure on maternal healthcare services exacerbates the existing financial burden for the economically vulnerable female-headed households. This necessitates the concentration of research and policy attention to alleviate these households from the sexual and reproductive health distresses. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Not Applicable. JEL CLASSIFICATION: D10, I12, J16.

Methodical Approach to Inactivate Any Microbial Element like SARS-CoV2.

The proposed paper discusses Far UVC could assassinate microbes without harming healthy tissues. The plasma ion generation will increase the ion (O2 -) generation in abundance along with hydrogen ion (H+), and at the same time, the negative hydroxyl radical (OH-) formed will merge with the positive (H+) ion of the virus to break the structure of it. The silver nanoparticle which is present in the diffuser with thermostat support is very effective for destroying the microbial elements by heating the gel present within the diffuser. The gel will mix in the environment, and it will also increase the activity of T cell generation and act as an immunoglobulin booster in the human body while inhaling it. In the proposed device, we are using warm humidified CO2 strategic therapy in low dose which is able to suppress any microbial element like SARS-CoV2.